Dancer, choreographer and director Kiani Del Valle describes her performance style as ‘multidisciplinary dance grooves… or dystopian creature moves.’ Her choreography sedates and contorts limbs with emotion; crashed by something unfathomable the body becomes an embodiment of the tangible remnants, the aftermath of the collision.

Kiani Del Valle was born in Puerto Rico, in a family where ‘arts was roaming.’ Her earliest memory of dance is his grandfather Isidro dancing with ‘pretty much every woman in the room.’ ‘He was an incredible salsa dancer,’ she recalls. Having established her own company KDV Dance Ensemble; collaborated with the likes of OBJEKT, FLOATING POINTS, CLAUDIA COMTE, COPENHAGEN CONTEMPORARY and CLARK, Del Valle is today based Berlin but Puerto Rico - with its sun-coloured medley of Spanish and American influences, sea breathes and turbulent history - remains the greatest inspiration for her electrifying moves. - ‘The Tetris, slow mobility of traffic jams ‘’Bomba y Plena’’ circles in Loiza, school garage parties or ‘’fiestas de marquesina’’, motorcycle races and the improvised talent shows I used to record with my neighbours on my dad’s mini DV camera” - are some of the elusive memories she has of growing up in the Caribbean. All this mixed and clashed with the choreographer’s random curiosities and day-to-day encounters: the amphibian warrior humans of the Bajau Tribe of Malaysia; Axolotls (“The cutest alien Mexican salamander”), people in the streets of Puerto Rico fighting for basic living needs and the ‘unknown dancing crackhead’ in the Schönleinstraße u-bahn station near her house in Berlin ‘nailing the Butoh technique on a daily basis.’

Steeped in classical dance training and skewed by her multidisciplinary approach, Kiani Del Valle’s work inadvertently comments on the inevitability of movement, the sensory impact of the mundane translated and unraveled through dance. “There’s no path to evolution without movement,” she affirms. To mark her latest collaboration with photographer Kitty Schumacher, Kiani Del Valle talks about her influences, recalls her most remarkable projects and comments on the shift of the mainstream attention towards performance.

When and how did you first get into dancing?
I was a pre-teen that loved painting and was aspiring to be a painter. Coincidentally, I ended up training in theatre and pantomime in a dance school, which eventually led me to formal dance training. But in retrospect, there was always a lot of arts roaming in my family besides the close relationship with dance, food and music that comes with growing up in the Caribbean.

Are there any dancers/performers you were inspired by growing up?
That’s a difficult one because there are actually so many artist that have marked me from an early age; they all make a gumbo that defines my style and taste today.Growing up I took inspiration from performers across various cultural arenas. From singers like La Lupe, TLC, Silvio Rodríguez, Iris Chacón, Meredith Monk, Ivy Queen, Gwen Stefani, Ely Guerra, Kate Bush, Héctor Lavoe, Menudo, Fiona Apple; the bands like Sonic Youth, Davila 666, The Cranberries, The KLF, The Prodigy and Mecano ; to dancers / choreographers such as, Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse, Pina Bausch, Busby Berkeley, Petra Bravo, Louise Lecavalier and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker; to the incredible TV personality and astrologer that was Walter Mercado; even cartoon characters like Betty Boop, Sailor Moon and Carmen SanDiego.

How has Puerto Rico influenced your work?
Being born and raised in one of the world’s oldest colonies in the middle of the Caribbean, you can imagine that there is going to be an obvious impact in one’s childhood. I was raised with an incredible sense of social justice , responsibility to know our pre-colonial history as well as the complications and injustices of our colonial status. Puerto Rico will always influence my work.

How does your work disrupt classical dance structures and formations?
I did years and year of rigorous ballet training; doing pointe work and learning the classics. My movement has changed a lot since focusing on contemporary dance as well as training with different teachers internationally in several styles and techniques; developing my own choreographic style with a multidisciplinary approach. However for some reason there are certain visual elements of ballet that keep reappearing in my work, like circular formations, V formations, cannons; also a passion for physical work and a respect and formality to studio work dynamics. The disruption of these classical formations comes when inserting my own movement within these frames in addition to the platforms where my work is presented - in most cases out of the traditional theatre stage.

You have collaborated with a lot of artists, musicians and designers. What were the most memorable projects you have worked on?

I HAVE GROWN TALLER FROM STANDING WITH TREES:

An installation by artist Claudia Compte at the Copenhagen Contemporary featuring music by Egon Elliut and 3 choreography pieces.
The project allowed me to work inside a massive installation for almost a year and make it my character’s universe. Act 1 was a solo in which choreographed and performed. Act 2 consisted of a workshop for non-dancers. And finally Act 3 was an ensemble piece that featured 4 professional dancers and myself. Working closely with Claudia, getting to know her artistic practice and her mission as an environmentalist was really moving and it in turn shaped my choreography. I created an archetype of a cyborg that retained movement information and behaviour of 7 animals of the forest. For my character, Claudia’s installation became a matrix, an architectural maquette or a moving live map of a forest. It was the year 2050 and the sons of our sons where presenting this to future generations, informing them what a forest was and how the living organisms in it used to move.

OBJEKT music video directed by Joji Koyama, performed and choreographed by me:

The director Joji Koyama really allowed me to pour a lot of myself into the work. He had a clear idea and specific parameters for me. I had to think of myself as an organism while pulling between the naiveness of a baby that is discovering the world for the first time and an old soul that has lived and understood deep pain. I was not allowed to use my arms and hands and that limitation was great for the development of the choreography. I became obsessed with tailoring each drop, twist, release, contortion and histrionic element to the music. The rehearsal process was really intimate but rigorous, just Joji, a camera and me, which really allowed me to go to visceral and dark places. The challenge for me was to marry my emotional cues within the existing pre-programmed movement.

CATACOUSTIC FLESH . Conceptualised, choreography and performed by me. Music by Leo Luchini and Costumes by London designer BOUYEZ at NATIONAL SAWDUST NYC.

My friend Brandon Stousy invited me to present a solo at this incredible venue in Brooklyn called National Sawdust under the frame of Northside Festival last year. For a while now I have been interested in inverting the process of music/dance collaboration; raising some relevant questions for my creative process concerning codification of dance, movement copy-write and movement composition. This project allowed me to research these topics. I worked with music producer Leo Luchini. We played with the idea of ‘choreographing from music’ and ‘composing from movement.’ The process was wonderful and in retrospect it sowed the seeds of where I am headed now.

DEATH PEAK world tour for CLARK under Warp Records:

This tour was the turning point of my dance journey. It was choreographed by my incredibly talented friend Melanie Lane and performed by my special friend Sophia Ndaba and myself. The first time I got to work with CLARK was for the 2015 European tour, in which I was casted as a dancer. In 2016 life took me to Los Angeles for a year but I was called up by the CLARK team and I returned to Europe for CLARK - DEATH PEAK World Tour. The tour not only challenged me as a dancer but also gave me an incredible creative family. After this tour I felt ready to kill any stage, ready to encounter any situation.

What do you want your work to say to the world?
On the contrary, I want my work to listen to the environment.

What are the most important lessons you have learned during your training?
1. Don’t perform or train when you lack sleep.
2. Speak up when you feel misunderstood or disrespected.
3. There’s absolutely no reason why you should not rehearse, there’s always space for improvement.
4. Pick your team members wisely.
5. MAGNESIUM & GLUCOSAMINE ! In your purse, in your bag, everywhere ! Your body needs it !

Do you consider your work to be art?
Of course, but I don’t need the title.

How would you describe your performance style in three words?
‘MULTIDISCIPLINARY DANCE GROOVES’ or ‘DISTOPIAN CREATURE MOVES.’

Why is movement important?
There’s no path to evolution without movement.

How important is music for your process?
Music or sound is an express road to a mode of response. I come to the studio with different playlists and I just let it run while I improvise. If I am working with a musician we work in a same way - using music or sound as a guide for movement. When it comes to working with dancers in the studio and developing ensemble pieces we add other elements - text and creative games. Nonetheless, recently I am tapping into inverting this process, composing sounds with my movement in various ways.

Where do you feel dance and performance is ‘at’ nowadays?
It’s beginning to be recognised more within art circles, fashion labels, the music industry and brands but unfortunately, it is still underpaid.

How do you think social media has influenced performance art?
Social media has definitely connected us more and exposed us to each other’s work but it can also distract people, urge them to focus on “how it looks’’ rather than “how it feels.’’ I try to maximise my time in the studio.

Could you share with us some of your plans? Any upcoming projects?
The most exciting one to date... the launch of my own dance company, the KDV ENSEMBLE, a group of the most skilful dancers and choreographers I had the joy and honour to work with for the past 6 months. The premiere will take place February 1st in Funkhaus Berlin and will included live music by musicians I really admire like ; Floating Points, Lotic and Raven.

Apart from that there’s also a year long program at a 4d sound venue in Berlin called MONOM, where i’ll be presenting a project that I been conceptualising for the past 10 years.