Lucinda Childs began her career as choreographer and performer in 1963 as an original member of the Judson Dance Theater in New York.

After forming her own dance company in 1973, Childs collaborated with Robert Wilson and Philip Glass on the opera Einstein on the Beach in 1976, participating as principal performer and solo choreographer for which she received an Obie award. Childs has appeared in five of Wilson’s major productions. Beginning in 1979, Childs collaborated with a number of composers and designers on a series of large-scale productions.

The first of these was Dance, choreographed in 1979 with music by Philip Glass, and a film/decor by Sol LeWitt. It continues to tour extensively in the United States and Europe and was cited by the Wall Street Journal (2011) as “one of the greatest achievements of the 20th century.” Since 1981, Childs has received a number of commissions from major ballet companies and has choreographed and directed several opera productions including: Gluck’s Orfeo et Euridice for the Los Angeles Opera, Mozart’s Zaide for La Monnaie in Brussels and a new production of John Adams’s Dr Atomic for the Opera du Rhin in 2014.

Childs received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1979.  She is also the recipient of the NEA/NEFA American Masterpiece Award, and in 2004 was elevated from Officer to Commander of France’s Order of Arts and Letters.  In 2017 she received the Samuel H. Scripps award for lifetime achievement at the American Dance Festival in Durham, North Carolina, as well as the Venice Biennale de la Danse Golden Lion Award.

Merce Cunningham (April 16, 1919-July 26, 2009) is widely considered to be one of the most important choreographers of all time. His approach to performance was groundbreaking in its ideological simplicity and physical complexity: he applied the idea that “a thing is just that thing” to choreography, embracing the notion that “if the dancer dances, everything is there.”

Cunningham was born in Centralia, Washington, and attended the Cornish School in Seattle. There, he was introduced to the work of Martha Graham (he would later have a six-year tenure as a soloist with her company) and met John Cage, who would become the greatest influence on his practice, his closest collaborator, and his life partner until Cage’s death in 1992. In 1948, Cunningham and Cage began a relationship with the famed experimental institution Black Mountain College, where Cunningham first formed a dance company to explore his convention-breaking ideas. The Merce Cunningham Dance Company (originally called Merce Cunningham and Dance Company) would remain in continuous operation until 2011, with Cunningham as Artistic Director until his death in 2009. Over the course of his career, Cunningham choreographed 180 dances and over 700 Events.

Across his 70-year career, Cunningham proposed a number of radical innovations to how movement and choreography are understood, and sought to find new ways to integrate technology and dance. With long-term collaborations with artists like Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Charles Atlas, and Elliot Caplan, Cunningham’s sphere of influence also extended deep into the visual arts world.

Cunningham earned some of the highest honors bestowed in the arts, and his dances have been performed by groups including the Paris Opera Ballet, New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, White Oak Dance Project, the Lyon Opera Ballet, Ballett am Rhein, and Londons Rambert Dance Company.

Through the Merce Cunningham Trust, his vision lives on, regenerated time and time again through new bodies and minds.

Noa Eshkol Eshkol (1924 – 2007) was a choreographer, dance pedagogue, and textile artist. Together with Avraham Wachman, she developed the Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation System and collaborated across disciplines with artists and scientists. Her approach to dance was marked by a focus on the essential: by recognizing each movement and every part of the body in its full autonomy and complexity, she opened a vast space for creative diversity in choreographic composition. Her work continues to influence contemporary choreographic and performative practices to this day.

Jesús Rubio Gamo (Madrid, 1982) is an independent dancer and choreographer based in Madrid. After studying ballet, contemporary dance, theatre and literature, Jesús was awarded with a MAE-AECI grant to develop dance studies in a foreign country. He moved to London where he completed an MA in choreography at London Contemporary Dance School (Distinction). He has also studied an MA in Performative Studies at Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid. His work has been presented at National and International Festivals such as Chantiers d’Europe (Théâtre de la VilleParis), Dancenet Sweeden, Festival de Otoño (Madrid), The Greenwich and Docklands International Festival (London), FAEL (Lima), Les Plateaux (La Briquetterie-Paris), Birmingham International Dance Festival, ARC for Dance (Athens), International Theatre Amsterdam, Hay Festival or Romaeuropa Festival.

Jesús was selected two years in a row (2017 and 2018) by the Platform Aerowaves as one of the most relevant 20 young choreographers in Europe. In 2020 the Spanish National Radio awarded him with the Prize OJO CRÍTICO in dance. The jury highlighted “his artisanal approach to dance composition shown in intimate projects as well as in the orchestration of big ensembles in which he manages to balance the choreographic structure with the individuality of his performers.”