Diavolo

Diavolo Dance Theater is an internationally renowned modern acrobatic dance company. Diavolo company members are dancers, gymnasts, actors, athletes and, above all, teammates. Under the guidance of Artistic Director Jacques Heim, the Company has developed a reputation for stunning, innovative movement on oversized surrealistic sets and everyday structures. Through working together, Diavolo dancers explore the challenges of relationships, the absurdities of life, and the struggles to maintain our humanity.

Jacques Heim founded Diavolo Dance Theater in 1992. Based in Los Angeles ever since, Diavolo was officially recognized as a cultural treasure by the City of Los Angeles in 2007. The 2011-12 season marks Diavolo’s thirteenth U.S. tour, with over fourteen weeks on the road in twenty cities. In addition, Diavolo has toured extensively throughout Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Diavolo has also created unique performance events for corporate clients such as Wells Fargo, Honda, Sebastian Inc, and General Motors.

Diavolo recently created Transit Space, a new piece inspired by the movement of skateboarding. Diavolo performed workshops of Transit Space in residency at the Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County as part of Pacific Standard Time: Art in LA 1945-1980. Transit Space receives its world premiere this season at the Center for the Performing Arts at Pennsylvania State University as the culminating event of Diavolo’s participation in the Creative Campus Project, an initiative to foster connections between performing arts companies and universities, funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and administered by the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP).

The Los Angeles Philharmonic commissioned Diavolo to create a trilogy of dance pieces to premiere with the orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl: Foreign Bodies (2007), set to the music of Esa-Pekka Salonen; Fearful Symmetries (2010), set to the music of John Adams; and Fluid Infinities (to premiere in 2013), set to the music of Philip Glass. The LA Times described the Hollywood Bowl premieres as “those rare events that define the art of this city, when the levels of vision and support are equally exceptional…[Diavolo] makes precisely coordinated feats look improvisational, even reckless…To say Diavolo is exciting is redundant.”

This past year alone, the Diavolo Education Company performed for over 40,000 students through young persons’ matinees, in-school assemblies. In addition, the company regularly hosts open training sessions, master classes, and weeklong intensives that immerse emerging dance artists in Diavolo technique. On tour, Diavolo regularly conducts workshops in community centers, schools, hospitals, and juvenile detention centers. With the University of Georgia Research Foundation, Diavolo received a 2010 American Masterpieces grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to fund education activities.