Catalina Mahecha

Spain
Year of starting to practice
2009
Year of starting to teach
2015

Catalina Mahecha is an improviser dancer and researcher of the body in movement. Her academic studies were about Humanities and Artistic Education. In 2009 she meets the Contact Improvisation Dance universe through Cristiane Boullosa, whose work inspires her deeply. Since then, she has trained with different teachers as Diana Bonilla, Mayling Bisogno, Jonathan Martinau, Lucía Marote, Lucio Baglivo, Camille Hanson, Linda Buffali, Martin Keogh, Itay Yatouv, Karl Frost, Joao Fiadeiro, among others, and feels especially influenced by the somatic work (Body Mind Centering) of Patricia Gracia, Valburga Glatz and Urs Stauffer.

Between 2014 and 2016 he simultaneously studied the Contact Improvisation Training in Madrid and the Training in Prceso Corporal Integrativo (PCI) research of the body and movement from a psychophysical perspective. Her pedagogical work is based on somatic research, authentic movement and the poetic dimension that creates universes in movement and improvisation. She has been a CI teacher at the Karen Taft dance school (2015), Escuela de Danza Creativa (2019/2020) and Espacio que Vuela (2016/2020); Workshop facilitator at the CI Festival, Cardedeu (Catalonia 2017 and 2020), WIM Festival (What is Music Festival, Burgos Spain, 2016 and 2018), Teatro La Máscara, Laboractores and Universidad del Valle (Cali Colombia 2017/2021), Madrid Contact Festival (2022), and others. The pedagogical space has become over the years a path of self-knowledge and deep accompaniment to the processes that are revealed from dance and body work. She has collaborated on stage projects with the Little Queens company (2015), “Aurality and Environment” by Brandon LaBelle, as a performer in video creation (Madrid 2017/20022) and in dance performances in unconventional spaces from the Descalzhina Danza Collective. He currently participates in different multidisciplinary creation projects with artists from different disciplines around Improvisation.

Significant teachers
Cristiane Boullosa, Diana Bonilla, Mayling Bisogno, Jonathan Martinau, Lucía Marote, Lucio Baglivo, Camille Hanson, Linda Buffali, Martin Keogh, Itay Yatouv, Karl Frost, Joao Fiadeiro,