Miguel Bolaños

Fellow 2025
dancer and choreographer in the field of contemporary, traditional, and urban dance based in Heredia, Costa Rica
cooperating partner: David Pupiales (Pasto, Colombia)

Miguel Bolaños is a dance professional with an emphasis on choreography and with training and experience in contemporary, traditional, and urban dance. Through dance, he navigates questions of identity, belonging, and transformation – seeking a space of communion, where humankind meets humankind.

Miguel seeks to deepen his creative work as a dancer and choreographer by reconnecting with the dances of the Quillasinga indigenous community, and their role as an element that integrates the festive, dance, ritual, oral, musical and aesthetic legacy of the Carnival of Blacks and Whites of his former hometown, Pasto, Colombia. This process will be guided by David Pupiales, an important researcher and artist belonging to the indigenous community.

"We support Miguel’s proposal because it is in tune with the current dynamic process in Columbia where the indigenous peoples of Columbia are revitalizing their cultural identities, adapting to evolution of culture, and resisting distinction of a culture, in the face of external pressures, threats, and violence. Miguel’s work acknowledges the non-static of a culture, at the same time striving to contribute to a discourse of maintaining a cultural heritage and rights whilst in the diaspora.
His choice of mentorship is also very strong and solid, as David Pupiales is not only an interdisciplinary artist, but also an expert in the dances of the Quillacinga indigenous community of Obonuco he is belonging to. Pupiales is also an artisan of the Blacks and Whites’ Carnival in Pasto and director of the Danzantes del Sur Company, therefore his work focuses on traditional and indigenous dance, searching for new forms of expression and communication. The collaboration will definitely enable an artistic exchange that will fulfill the inter-generational and deep connection of a same people divided by a border and connected by the arts."
- From the Jury Statement