Camilo Mejía Cortés VAIVÉN

The idea of VAIVÉN comes from the basic motion found in salsa dance when the body enters into a state of constant oscillation; when one foot goes in front and comes back, the other goes behind and does the same, when one foot goes to one side and comes back, the other one goes to the other side and does the same. This swinging of feet releases the knees, pelvis, hips, chest, shoulders and head, putting the whole body in a state of intoxication, a state of being in different moments, a state of being here or there, in between here and there or neither here nor there.
Salsa was an important event between the 1960s and the 80s, especially in Latin America. Camilo travels back to his first years of dance where he learnt to dance salsa in the living-room between turns, laughs and footwork with his aunt Luz Dary. VAIVÉN is also a contribution to the archive of the African Diaspora’s experiences, and a way to see the resonance that contemporary artistic expressions have in different territories where this diaspora exists. Taking music as a sonic archive of connection of multiple bodies in conversation through time and space, allowing body and the spiritual to converge, and being in contact with the material just as much as the immaterial, Camilo invites the audience to witness some of his ongoing salsa research.

Camilo Mejía is a Brussels-based multidisciplinary artist born in Cali, Colombia, where he spent most of his childhood and teenage years. He was always in contact with music and dance but far from the institutional path until the age of 21 when he decided to start following a dance education program in Barcelona.
His interest in improvisation and performance brought him to Salzburg Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance (SEAD) and during his last year of studies he was invited as guest artist for “Sounds of Trap”, a production with the Bodhi Project Company of SEAD and the choreographer Cecilia Bengolea. He was also part of the Salzburg Opera Festival’s production “L’incoronazione di Poppea”, directed by Jan Lauwers who invited Camilo to be part of Needcompany.
Camilo was part of different productions with Needcompany, like “War and Turpentine”, “Isabella’s Room”, “All that good” and “PIE (Probabilities of Independent Events)”. In 2020, he joined “The Sadness”, directed by Ula Sickle that was presented at Beursschouwburg in the same year. Furthermore, Camilo performed in “Draconis Lacrimae”, a work by Pablo Lilienfeld and Federico Vladimir as well as “OUTWALKERS” by Moya Michael in the season 2021-22. Together with Cherish Menzo, he premiered D̶A̶R̶K̶MATTER in 2022 at Beursschouwburg.
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