Meet Enrique Villacreses | Dancer, Choreographer and Filmmaker

We had the good fortune of connecting with Enrique Villacreses and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Enrique, what is the most important factor behind your success?
Success is very different for many people, it has distinctive intensions and interpretations, depending to the such said goal. Personally, I don’t believe I have achieved success yet, and even if I did, I rather not know that I have. Because if I did know, it will place me in a place of comfort and when that happens, I would be unwilling to take risks to continue honing and evolving in my creative line of work.

Please tell us more about your work. We’d love to hear what sets you apart from others, what you are most proud of or excited about. How did you get to where you are today professionally. Was it easy? If not, how did you overcome the challenges? What are the lessons you’ve learned along the way. What do you want the world to know about you or your brand and story?
Well, let me get a bit boring with this one… as an emerging artist, I invite dancers to enter unfamiliar experimental terrain with each work I create. In this space, I allow creative exchange, collaborative partnership, and individuality to transpose fixed notions of what movement represents. Creative efforts highlight unique voices while the choreographic process tends to deconstruct classical framework. While in the studio, investigations of what lies beneath the surface of our skins occur. The work evokes organic emotion beyond the physical movement, which speaks to visceral interpretation and identity. The use of interdisciplinary mediums to include digital media enhances the visual tapestry of the work. The incorporation of dance on film attributes a pre-planned distortion of the choreography, which is permeable yet controlled. Additionally, dance on film further expands through the use of technology, imagination, and scope. Up to date film-making, photography, and cinematography encompass the construction of narrative.
Conversely, the destruction of the third wall invites the viewer to experience and immerse themselves in the piece. This invitation to view the work from within fosters a sense of proximity and welcoming appeal. Attention to visual gaze for both the dancers and audience grants a synergy between performer and viewer. Choreographing and creating movement is an interpretative, playful, and fun way to interact with the world. It engages the senses, psychology, and physical environment of its participants. In closing, I create an opportunity (through the performing arts) to modernize the theatrical approach and execution of what contemporary dance can or should be for its audiences.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Hard question for someone that barely goes out and rather finds it own self-minded box entertaining. I’ll say, anything that draws my attention, maybe it has an interesting panoramic view or landscape, maybe somewhere that has history or is trying to tell me its own story. But definitely a place where isn’t insanely crowed or noisy. So, no clubs or restaurants here, unless I’m purposeless creating or filming on such location.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
This is one is very hard. I have met so many people over the years that deserve recognition for where I am now. Teachers, mentors, friends and family. All of them together are the driving force that ultimately had a huge impact at influencing me to where I am now.

That said, I may give names of organizations which sort of generalises the quantity of people that molded me and supported me then and now.

New World School of the Arts, Miami Light Project, Dance Canvas, Caraboom team, Armour Dance Theater, Miami Hispanic Cultural Arts Center, Inter-American Choreographic Institute/Sanctuary of the Arts, Ballet Flamenco La Rosa, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Arthur and Polly Mays Conservatory of the Arts, National Water Dance, South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center, Miami Movement Collective, and Dance Miami Choreographers’ (DMC) Program.

Website: https://www.enriquevillacreses.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/friesh

Image Credits
Destiny Diaz, Kael Baez, Mateo Serna Zapata, Simon Soong, Juan Cabrera, Maya Billig, and Ana Maria Guzman Diaz.