Julio Medina

Julio Medina, photo by Matt Spaugh

Julio Medina is a Chicano artist and educator native to Los Angeles but now based in Atlanta. His work focuses on resilience, connection, and restoration, engaging mediums such as movement, film, and text. I Gotta, Medina’s work has been presented at The New Dance Alliance Performance Mix Festival in Brooklyn, NY (2017), the ConderDance Festival in Tempe, AZ (2018), and the American Dance Festival Alumni Concert in Durham, NC (2018). Julio earned his MFA at UCLA’s Department of World Arts & Cultures/Dance. Beforehand, Medina completed a double B.A. in Dance and Movement Studies and Anthropology at Emory University as a Quest Bridge Scholar. Medina joined David Rousséve/REALITY as a company member in 2016. He toured in the evening-length work Halfway to Dawn nationally and internationally from 2018-2019 at venues including REDCAT in Los Angeles, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), and Jacob’s Pillow. Julio has also performed with Kevin Williamson, Cheng-Chieh Yu, and George Staib, traveling to Beijing, China, and Sorrento, Italy. Medina returned to Emory University as Assistant Professor in the dance program in 2019. He teaches Hip-Hop, Modern Dance, Improvisation, and Dance History. Julio also engages with the Atlanta dance community through teaching and performance. He is faculty at CORE Dance Studios and a company member of ALA Dance, a multi-disciplinary movement company in Atlanta.

This work is a structured improvisation exploring how various movement languages coexist in one body through cultural and assimilated practice. Simultaneously, the piece serves as a process of decolonization for the performer, resisting a relentless symphony by Mozart by pushing, redirecting, and splitting the body with juxtaposing movement vocabulary.