Performing in the 2013 Green Show Friday, August 30 and Saturday, August 31.
This is his first season with the OSF Green Show.
In Raphael's newest work, Xavier acts as both narrator and dancer.
Raphael Xavier, is an award winning artist from Wilmington, Delaware who is credited for the resurrection and the growth of the Breaking community in Philadelphia from 1996 to present day. As a member of the world renown Hip Hop Dance Company, Rennie Harris Puremovement since 1998, Raphael is a Pennsylvania Fellow of the Arts in Folk and Traditional forms and has been funded by the Independence Foundation and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. He has been a professional breaker/dancer for the last 15 years, working in a variety of fields including music, photography and film. A self taught Hip Hop dancer and Breaking practitioner since 1983, Raphael continues to learn and recreate new ways to expand the vocabulary of the dance form through constant research of the culture, performance and practice, staying present in the community. His work is based in the tradition of Hip-Hop Culture, moving in and out of reality and imagination. With an eclectic vocabulary and the ability to captivate any audience, dance theatre takes on many directions leading to a single innovative performance.
Raphael Xavier on Community: While continuing to learn and recreate new ways to expand the vocabulary of the dance form through constant research of the culture, performance and practice; staying present in the community of hip-hop is important. By implementing Modern dance and poetry as well, this engages other communities to experience another art form that blurs the lines of "stereotypes" and asks the audience to only "experience" the dancer's story.
www.raphaelxavier.com
The presentation of Raphael Xavier was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with additional support from the National Endowment for the Arts.