Gabriel Mata (pronounced: gah-bryehl mah-tah) is a Mexican American dance choreographer, educator, film maker, and performer. He navigates the world as queer, Latinx, immigrant, and as of recently a permanent resident to the United States. He received his MFA in dance from the University of Maryland - College Park.

 

Mata’s multidisciplinary approach offers access to intersectionality and develops through his research of motion memoirs. A theme that is currently at the forefront of his work is the cementing and development of BIPOC art. His artistic practice stems from social activation, egalitarian processes in dance education, and de-centering concert dance through collective movement making. Currently, he is exploring a dance that reconnects back to cultural inheritance and does away with assimilation and its impact on the body.

 

The Minnesota StarTribune has called him “Sly, subtle and totally virtuosic, theatrical dancer-choreographer Gabriel Mata holds the stage with expressive movement and witty words.” His dance works have been performed in Minnesota, California, New York, North Carolina, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Washington DC, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. His work has been commissioned by David Herrera Performance Company, Georgian Court University, Dance Loft on 14, sjDANCEco, Charlotte Dance Festival, Howard Community College, the Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers, Dance Place, Silicon Valley Pride, the Hispanic National Bar Association, and the Charlotte Dance Festival.

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Recently, in performance Mata has collaborated with artists like Adrian Gaston Garcia (DC) Joteria: Our untold stories…,  David Herrera (SF) Oralé, and Leslie Garcia (San José) Raices, al sur, and Gary Champi (WA/NY) Off White along with Michael Wall (AZ), avant garde costume designer Gabriel Feliú (Puerto Rico).

 

Mata is the inaugural Social Justice Commissioned Artist for Dance Loft on 14th and the Atlas has been awarded the Amplify Grant, DC Commission for the Arts and Humanities Fellowship Grant, DCCAH Performance, Events, and Festival Grant, and the Kennedy Center REACH Campus Office Hours Residency. He currently teaches as an adjunct at the University of Maryland - College Park and Coppin State University. 

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