Javi Cruz
Foto de Jorge Anguita Mirón
JAVI CRUZ. While leaving behind basketball and graffiti, he studied art at the universities of Madrid (UCM), Granada (UGR), Utrecht (HKU), and Oxford (Oxford University). Individually or as part of the collectives Elgatoconmoscas and PLAYdramaturgia, he has engaged with images and narratives, alchemies, and situation design, developing exhibition, programming, and pedagogical projects across many Madrid-based spaces, as well as in national and international contexts.
He has collaborated on stage productions with artists such as Cris Blanco (Bad Translation), María Jerez (Yabba, The Stain), nyamnyam (Comida, 8.000 años), Claudia Faci (Mazo besos con mazo sentimiento, Los trabajos del amor), Óscar Bueno (Vientos), Aitana Cordero (Los besos), Laura Ramírez Ashbaugh (work in progress), Paz Rojo (work in progress), and Cuqui Jerez (Mágica y elástica, Las Ultracosas and other works in progress). He was also part of the team representing Spain at the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space in its latest edition.
He was part of the Teatro Pradillo artistic direction and programming team and co-directs the Bosque Real program, which has been experimenting with performative visits and site-specific productions in various locations, communities, and histories within Casa de Campo and El Retiro in Madrid since 2019. He is also an associate artist at Dorothy Michaels, a collective platform for sharing resources and processes in the performing arts field.
His work as a visual artist is represented by Galeria Luis Adelantado in Valencia. He lives and works between Valle del Tiétar and Madrid, alongside part of his family and friends.
No se silba
This research delves into the shared superstitions between the sea and the stage, historically shaped by the transfer of knowledge from individuals who worked first at sea and then in the theater—stagehands who were well-versed in working at heights and the mechanics of both spaces, the ship and the stage. They brought with them not only their skills but also beliefs, rituals, and performative practices that still surround performance today.
Thanks to the residency at La Caldera, we will be able to work on the creation of a series of situations that lead to compositional scenes and future images, as well as excursions and forays into other scenic and marine spaces, aiming to produce text materials that coexist with gestures and images in a printed publication, a series of paintings, and a possible stage situation.
