Folk Bands and Artists
Natalia García-Huidobro
Santiago de Chile and Madrid
Natalia García-Huidobro was born in 1975 in Santiago, Chile to a family with a strong theatrical tradition. She first danced professionally in Mexico between 1992 and 1997 where she joined the contemporary dance company ‘En Cruz’. In 1998 she moved to Spain to study flamenco, during this period she danced in Miguel Canias’ flamenco company in ‘El Quejio del Silencio. Returning to Chile in 2000, Natalia founded and directed the flamenco company Palo Santo, with whom she created two shows of great cultural importance for the Chilean music and dance scene. The first of them, ‘A Ras de Tierra’, was performed in theatres and dance festivals throughout her native country and later went on to tour Mexico. The success of this work led Palo Santo to win an important award from the Chilean government’s Foundation for the Development of Arts and Culture. With this funding, Natalia and Palo Santo created a new piece: ‘Memorias del Viento’– a show that toured Chile for an entire year with great success. In 2003 a new period in Natalia’s career began. She was awarded a scholarship from the Chilean government to return to Spain to study in the flamenco dance academy Amor de Dios. Since then, she has been based in Madrid where she has developed her professional dancing and teaching career. She performs regularly in tablaos (venues specialising in flamenco) in Madrid. Her performing-teaching career has expanded throughout Europe: working as artistic director and choreographer for the experimental dance centre LE SUK in Taranto, Italy; teaching in dance schools in London, Japan and the Czech Republic, and touring in Greece with Juan Antonio de los Reyes’ dance company. Amongst her most recent projects, Natalia works as leading dancer in the Danish group Arte Flamenco, and worked as dancer and co-director with Manolo Punto in Paris, in the critically-acclaimed work ‘Bailando sobre la lluvia’. Her activities in England include frequent collaborations with the baroque-fusion music group Eclipse and the creation of the show ‘Desde el Silencio’ with the dance company La Tipica in which she is the choreographer and artistic director.
Genre: Flamenco
