Movement Director, Choreographer, Dancer
Javi Díaz is based in Mexico City and Cuautla, Morelos. His work has been recognized across competitions, music videos, and television. He has collaborated with notable artists such as Meduza and Hozier, Maro Romano, and Aleman.
“When Ambika and Monica approached me about this project, it was a terrifying, but exciting, challenge. As former dancers, their movements were innate — it was something to both elevate and break apart to truly reach the intended nagual/dog style.
For the Intervention choreography, a process of body-work was carried out with Ambika and Monica over the course of two months. After reading BITCH, we visualized and carried out a combination of improvisational sessions and choreographed vocabulary-building. We built narratives around Ambika and Monica’s respective “dogs” — personality, behavior, style, as well as understanding the core feeling of shapeshifting from dog to human (the inner-nagual). To inspire this type of movement in others, as a viral performance, it was important to find the core essence of the “instinctual” within ourselves and expressing it with movement.
In tandem with music, we broke apart the animal movements based on dogs to visualize the nagual-essense (particularly, taking it into the “weird”). The nagual’s abstract movement and body structures allowed a transitional element between dog and human, expanding beyond dance. The choreography was also built around the space, of Revuelta in Roma Norte, which aided in the explorative nature of the narrative.
Myself, along with two dancers, Lucero and Ximena, were paramount to the strategy behind the “activation” element of the performance. Together, our team experimented with the viral nature of the movement (dog, nahual and human and vice versa). We also hosted a session with six guests prior to the performance — activating them, in order to further spread the virus.” - Javi Díaz