David Hernandez

David Hernandez was born and raised in Miami FL.

He studied studio music & jazz and opera at the University of Miami as a vocalist and Dance at the New World School of the Arts. He began creating his own work early on and self produced his own dance performances and events in Miami as well as abroad.

David worked with Miami choreographers Dale Andrée and Gerri Houlihan and for a short time with Randy Warshaw in NY as an apprentice where he met Meg Stuart for the first time. He returned to Miami to begin creating his own work and later returned to New York where he worked as an intern for the Trisha Brown Company.

He left New York along with compatriot Meg Stuart and moved to Europe to support the establishment of the company Damaged Goods in Belgium. David worked with the company for about 5 years and contributed as a dancer and as artistic collaborator in the following performances: No Longer Readymade, No One Is Watching, This is the show and the show is many things, as well as various happenings, installations and improvisation performances. In addition, he was responsible for the training classes of the company. David then established his own group, Edwardvzw, based in Brussels, in order to produce his own choreographic work. At that time he created several pieces including the solos Edward (96), Fernando (97) and the quartet: …the essence of its going (98).

At the same time, David developed and directed  (PEP) The Performance Education Program at STUK in Leuven. In this way, David was also recognized as a valuable teacher with a strong pedagogic vision. Parallel to this, he was a fixed teacher at P.A.R.T.S where he is still active. He is part of the artistic-educational core of this school and participates in the various evaluations of the students. Over the years his involvement at PARTS has included: technical dance training classes, composition and improvisation as well as rhythm workshops in collaboration Michel Debrulle and repertory workshops in which he makes choreographic work on the students.

David has been improvising since childhood, it is his second nature, so he feels strongly attracted to improvisation as a performance form. He developed, in collaboration with Meg Stuart & Christine De Smet, the improvisation project Crash Landing (1996-1999) that literally landed in various locations such as Leuven, Vienna, Paris, London and Moscow. He has led improvisations for the Klapstuk festival, Springdance, Sum of the PARTS and other festivals and has danced as an improviser with other leading artists including Katie Duck, Steve Paxton, Vera Mantero and Meg Stuart among others.

Other projects include the solo Love Letters (1999), Quartet (2000), commissioned for Labor Gras (Berlin, Germany), The Mapping of Canada (2000) and Schouet Doch (2001) in collaboration with Alexander Baervoets and collaborated and performed in the repertoire of the French choreographer Brice Leroux. David has collaborated with such different choreographers and artists and was at the same time busy developing his “style” or approach to movement . He also developed many tactics and approaches to creating work such as his own ‘elastic choreography. In elastic choreography rules and structures are the solid foundation for an improvised choreography. The result is a  the set choreography with room for freedom of choices by the dancers which creates a sort of game structure.

In 2001 he was invited by visual artist Cregie Horsefield to be part of his project “Johnny”. David initiated the month long project Filter at the Palais de Beaux Arts in Brussels and later in the same year created one of his first full scale performance events, Innersections,  that took place in the Beursschouwburg in Brussels. It was also during this period that David expanded his work to the visual arts by creating the filter installations, (Palace of Fine Arts) BOX and Spaces Within Spaces etc. .., and was also invited to participate in various exhibitions and happenings such as the exhibition in Bochum, Germany invited by Jan Hoet.

The sextet Blueprint premiered in 2002 and was nominated by the Belgian national newspaper ‘The Standard’ as one of the top ten performances of the year.

In 2003 he created the trio 3/0 and in 2004 the multidisciplinary project Performance Hotel, a location performance event consisting of dance works, installations, improvisation and music concerts et al., that was presented in Amsterdam, Brakke Gronde  and the squat/artists collective E101, Brussels, Beursschouwburg and De Singel, Antwerp. In the two following years, for Performance Hotel, new choreographies and installations were created including Bi-Polar, Accompanied, Musical Chairs and Parade.

More recently, David has collaborated with Labor Gras (G) as a dancer, director and co pedagogue and composer for multimedia productions I, Myself and Me again (2006) and Play the Play: Hide & Seek (2008). He then worked with Anouk van Dijk Company (Holland) for the productions Heads (2005), as a dancer, and as a dramaturg and composer for Pushing Air (2006).

Since 2005, David has been collaborating on a  regular basis with Anna Teresa de Keersmaeker and Rosas as a  movement creator and choreographic collaborator on the productions D’un soir Un Jour, Penture, La Monnaie happens,  Keeping Still, and  Zeitung . Most recently he worked as a dancer and singer for the creation and tour of Cesena currently still touring.  It was through experience that he met Bjorn Schmelzer and was asked to join the early music ensemble Graindelvoix with which he is currently working as a singer for projects such as the Missa Caput by Ockeghem and the Messe de Notre Dame from Machaut, among other projects, for which they will record a cd in March of 2013 in Cuenca, Spain for Glossa. Most recently David collaborated with Bjorn, Margarida Garcia and Koen Broos on the dramaturgical and scenographic elements for graindelvaoix’s new Concert/Performance “Trabe dich Thierlein”.

Since 2009 he began developing his own work again under the name DH+. The sextet with live music by Michel Debrulle Hullabaloo, a journey of sketches,  was performed as a work in progress presented at Beursschouwburg with plans to be completed and toured in the 2014-15 season. In 2011 he created, Thirst , a duet with live vocals by throat singer Phillip Cap and danced by Colas Lucot and Stanislav Dobak which was  seen on Dansand in Ostend, Danscentrum Jette, Lyon and Miami. He also re-created his installation event Unisono for Dansand for the first time in an outdoor setting. In 2013 he created Ta, also with musical collaboration with Michel Debrulle for the graduating students of DOCH university in Stockholm that premiered in May of that year. In 2013 two new productions were created. For Movement’s Sake is a trio to the music of Buxtehude that will premiered end January 2014 in Stuk, Leuven, Belgium with a subsequent tour. This performance is presently available for further touring. David was commissioned to make a piece for the Folkwang Tanz Studio in Essen, Germany. “Passage” premiered in May of 2013 and will tour in the repertory of the FTS combined with a new creation by Emmanuel Gat to make a complete evening.

He continues to work as creator and choreographer in music, dance, visual arts, multi-media, events, pedagogy and experimental theater throughout the world and is a sought after teacher, performer and creator / director.