030 Sip & Chat: Gabriel Mata

Welcome back to LNXdance with your Co-Hosts, Marcus & Mari! M&M continue Season 4 with the inspiring, talented, and wonderful Gabriel Mata!

IG: gabrielmatamoving
Site: www.gabrielmatamovement.com

Gabriel Mata (gah-bryehl mah-tah) is a Mexican American dance choreographer, educator, and performer from Washington DC. He received his Masters in Fine Arts - dance from the University of Maryland - College Park.

Mata’s seven-year research has cultivated his own performance work of “motion memoirs.” While focused on movement, the work is about centering marginalized narratives and identities removed from expectation of concert dance and the white lens. Motion memoirs make themes of Latinx, queerness, and immigration a part of a receptive conversation with viewers.

Mata’s dance works have been performed in California, New York, Minnesota, North Carolina, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas, New Jersey, Washington DC, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. His work has been presented at Stanford University, San José State University, Georgian Court University, Howard Community College, and American University; and has been commissioned by David Herrera Performance Company, Jane Franklin Dance, Atlas Performing Arts Center, Dance Loft on 14, sjDANCEco, Charlotte Dance Festival, the Minnesota Fringe Festival, the Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers, Dance Place, Silicon Valley Pride, the Hispanic National Bar Association, and Corazón Folklórico DC.

Currently, Gabriel is an adjunct instructor at American University, the John Hopkins University Peabody Conservatory, and teaches at the Washington Ballet Adult Program. He has been an instructor at the University of Maryland - College Park and Coppin State University and a guest instructor at San José State University, Georgetown University, UMD - Baltimore County, and Stanford University. 

Mata is the inaugural Social Justice Commissioned Dance Artist at Dance Loft on 14th and the Arts Lab Fellow at the Atlas Performing Arts Center. He received the S&R Evermay Washington Award for the Fillmore Dance Studio. He has been awarded the Amplify Grant, DC Commission for the Arts and Humanities Fellowship Grant, DCCAH Performance Grant, and the Kennedy Center REACH Campus Residency.

We are so happy to share his story with you. Comparte el amor with