Cristina Perera
Was raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
She studied Classical Ballet with Tatiana Leskova and at the Municipal Theater of Rio Janeiro.
She signed her first contract at the age of 15 thus being the youngest soloist at the Winter Dance Festival of Brazil where she had the honor to have a solo choreographed for her by Sir Frederick Ashton and to perform alongside Margot Fonteyn, Cynthia Gregory, David Wall, Ivan Nagy among many other international stars.
At the age of 17 she moved to Paris to continue her Ballet studies with Monsieur Goube from the Paris Opera.
She moved to London when invited by Sir Robin Howard (founder of the London Contemporary Dance Theatre ) to join the London Contemporary Dance School where he became her tutor. Shortly after Cristina was offered a contract to work with Flemming Flindt (from the Royal Danish Ballet) in Copenhagen where she performed as soloist in the productions of Salome and The Triumph of Death by Ionesco.
Always open to new ideas and possibilities, Cristina accepted another invitation by Sir Robin Howard to go to the US to continue her studies at the American Dance Festival at Durham University in North Carolina. In New York, she received a full merit scholarship to study at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. She was later sponsored and contracted as a soloist by Fusion Dance Company in Miami Florida.
Back in Europe she worked as a soloist with Caprioli Dance Company in Stockholm then with Ulysses Dove as a Principal dancer in the Opera Civil Wars by Philip Glass and Robert Wilson in Amsterdam, Holland and at The Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York.
Her next Opera, working as a Soloist was Nixon in China with Mark Morris by John Adams and Peter Sellers, premiered at The Houston Grand Opera with extensive tours in the USA and Europe.
In 1988 Ms Perera was contracted as a soloist for the Jamison Project, ( Judith Jamison, Alvin Ailey).
In 1990 Ulysses Dove invites her to work at The Ballet Jazz of Montreal, touring Canada, USA and the former Soviet Union.
Back in Europe 1992 Birgitta Trommler offers her the role of Lulu (Frank Wedekind) in a production of the State Theater in Munster, Germany.
In 1996 she moved to Vienna where she starts choreographing consistently and performing and choreographing for Liz King Dance Company.
Her Choreographic work takes her to Singapore Dance Theater in Singapore and Dance Theater Bralen in Bratislava (Slovakia).
In 1998 she was chosen among 56 choreographers for the production of Tabaluga and Lili by Peter Maffay at Teatro Centro Oberhausen, Germany. One year later her choreographic work was awarded by Ballet Builders and she was chosen as one of the 6 choreographers to present her work in NYC, USA.
She starts choreographing extensively for film, music videos, musicals and dance pieces alike in the USA, Europe and Asia.
In 2001 She was invited by Ismael Ivo for the production of Oedipus in the Berliner Ensemble and Theater House Stuttgart, directed by George Tabori she played the role of Antigone alongside Marcia Haidee as Jocasta.
In 2003 for the World Piece Foundation in Bangkok she collaborated artistically and choreographically with Marcia Haydee and Ismael Ivo for the production of The Tempest.
The year 2004 Ismael Ivo and Cristina Perera choreographed and performed Orpheus and Eurydice for the Piccini Theatre in Italy and the production of Black Atlantic for the House of World Cultures in Berlin.
In 2007, she became a casting partner for Cirque du Soleil, soon to become the Artistic Director of Cirque du Soleil’s Production Alegria in a South American tour.
In 2010 she was awarded with the prize AESTHETICS INTERACTIONS from the National Arts Foundation FUNARTE for her dance theatre production, CONSTRUCTIONS.
In 2017 Cristina was invited by Muhlenberg College Pennsylvania USA to present her work at Master Choreographers.
In 2020 her short video film LUX EX UMBRA was nominated for PRIX-SAUVAGE in Paris by the French Film Festival L’EUROPE AUTOUR DE L’EUROPE.
Ms. Cristina Perera continues to choreograph and direct projects, productions, concerts and many different venues where she is always in search of new materials and different possibilities around the world.