Camposition | Bio | Octavio Campos

OCTAVIO CAMPOS - BIOGRAPHY

Octavio Campos is a Miami born Cuban-American transdisciplinary artist.

He has been collaborating as a dancer, performance provocateur, arts advocate, glbtq activist, educator and choreographer in theater, dance, music, opera, circus, cabaret, television, film and the visual arts for the past 25 years, with over 100 professional credits.

He studied dance and composition at the State University of New York at Purchase, Martha Graham School, Folkwang Schule of Pina Bausch the Lincoln Center Director's Lab and is an alumni of the Creative Capital Professional Development Program.

His work has been performed in theaters and opera houses throughout Europe, North and South America. He has collaborated within the works of Robert Wilson, Birgitta Trommler, Philip Glass, Los Carpinteros, Honeygunlabs, Vivienne Newport and currently with Rosie Herrera. Campos has received countless awards and grants namely at the Berliner Theater Treffen in 2001, a Miami Choreographers Fellowship for 2005,2009, 2012 and Interdisciplinary Arts Fellow 2010 for the State of Florida.

He has given master classes and workshops worldwide, notably at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (Sydney, Australia) Florida Dance Festival, Catholic University Belgium, Centro Cultural Lima, Frankfurt Schule de Darstellender Kunst, The Theater Offensive, St. Petersburg Music Hall in Russia, Broward Correctional Institute for Women in Florida and on faculty at the New World School of the Arts, where he has served the dance, theater and music divisions from 1995 - 2009 teaching his original style of dance theater.

As a commercial artist and producer he has worked for Heineken, Circ X, Spiegel World, Cirque du Solei, Bacardi, MySpace, Latino, Merck, Mercy Hospital, Shell, Ferrari, Def Jam Records, and Donald Trump.

Upon his return to Miami from an extensive performance career in Germany, Campos founded the interdisciplinary performance ensemble, Camposition, whose productions and programs are being supported by the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Miami Dade College, Dade Community Foundation, City of Miami Beach, Florida Arts Council, PS 122, New York, The Kennedy Center, and the National Performance Network.

His theatrical performances are subversive in nature and challenge assumptions of gender and politics always shaking up the status quo.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My work is associate, subversive, and provocative - a direct response of how I see, represent and feel about what is happening in the world right now. I am inspired by reality, irony, laughter, stillness, silence, chaos, noise, curiosity, phenomenon and the stories of extraordinary people.

My work as a choreographer and social "ACTIONIST" is about connecting and triggering change in the viewer. I love to make people laugh, cry and feel alive while engaging with my work. Finding these moments to compose with are the most exciting part of my process right now.

I inspire. I dream big. I push boundaries. I make people uncomfortable. I make people laugh. I admire passion. I aspire to greatness. I recognize my faults and expose them on stage. I lend a hand. I provoke my community. I nurture creativity. I conjure up the invisible. I am nimble. I investigate the past. I reinvent the future. I have a garden of dramaturgs that I water every day. I believe in the kindness of all human beings. I hope for the best.

I get up and go into every endeavor I take on whether it be to choreograph a fashion show for babies with cancer, a same sex domestic violence cabaret, or a hybrid Chinese wedding dance with total professionalism and integrity. This is choreography for me. This is life. Life has so much more imagination than we dream.

The WORKS I make will question peoples presumptions and rethink their assumptions. The PIECES I create will be about issues that matter in really profound ways in a world in which nothing of consequence seems to matter anymore. The PERFORMANCES I design will be about connecting to each other and being curious. The QUESTIONS I raise in my work will create a rich conversation about how we live with one another generating interesting ideas we can bring into our daily lives, inspiring the ACTIONIST that lives within each of us to create a catalyst for social change.

Every project and idea I have starts within me and then I throw it out into the world and it comes back to me as an association, conflict or memory which I then accept as my clay and then I begin to sculpt time and space with it into a non linear narrative using dance, music and theater as a metaphor to create a polarity between something funny and horrific all at the same time. Bouncing in between these two zones is how I work.

The art of live performance seems to be disappearing due to the evolution of technology. I feel a strong responsibility to keep it alive in anyway possible. By pushing the boundary between all art forms, especially dance, I feel a deep responsibility to my world to respond actively through my expression using movement and social justice as the universal connector of connection to embracing life, finding balance and enjoying freedom.

Octavio Campos
April 26, 2011
Miami, FL