HISTORY

GIROVAGO is well known for the creation and direction of Gypsy Kumbia Orchestra (GKO) as well as a multitude of other projects in which Carmen and Juan Sebastian have collaborated as co-creators and producers such as the film FAIT VIVIR (Biarritz, 2019), the song and video EL GRITO Colombia Montréal (2020), The Take Out Lab, le Studio D 325 and The Family Dance Party.
In 2022, thanks to an invitation from TOHU in Montreal, GIROVAGO presented its new creation BARKA, a show that brings together 11 artists on stage and mixes music, dance and circus in a festive chaos that calls for hope.

THE CREATORS
Carmen Ruiz is a choreographer, performer and dance teacher. She has a degree in Literature and Dance from Concordia University in Montreal, and also works as an independent producer in the field of music and performing arts.
Of Colombian origin, she hopes that her artistic creation will become a spark that promotes the human and social movement towards the re-invention of individual and collective history. Her physical vocabulary and her contemporary research are deeply inspired by her Colombian roots and her story of migration, which nourishes her creative signature and her desire to express herself in the face of the complex issues of our current reality.
Juan Sebastian Mejia is a creator of the unexpected. His mind is constantly seeing a circus environment in which everyone, including the audience, is gripped by a compelling desire to move together and dance. His hope is that this desire will eventually translate into a collective movement for social change.
Trained in Afro-Colombian percussion with masters Kelly Rojas and Luis Carlos Ochoa (Colombia, 2005, 2006) and in Afro-Cuban percussion with master Francisco Sánchez "Lele" and the Cutumba Folkloric Company (Cuba, 2009, 2010), he also has extensive experience as a facilitator of improvisation workshops, games and collective creation.