Pedro Goucha Gomes
Pedro Goucha Gomes was born in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1972. At the age of 9, he started his dance studies at the school of the National Ballet of Portugal, and at 15 was invited by the Rumanian teacher Sergiu Stefanchi to resume his dance and academic studies at the National Ballet School in Toronto, Canada, where he studied for 3 years with a scholarship from the Portuguese Cultural Ministry. Upon completing his studies Pedro returned to Europe to join the Stuttgart Ballet under the directionship of Marcia Haydee. The rich and eclectic repertoire of this company introduced him to a vast repertory of Classical, Neo-classical and Contemporary works. In 1996, he was invited by Richard Cragun to join the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where he danced as a soloist and started choreographing at this company's choreographic workshops. In 1999 Pedro joined the Compania Nacional de Danza in Madrid, under the directorship of Nacho Duato, where he danced as a Principal Dancer. In 2002 he was invited to join the DeAnima Ballet in Rio de Janeiro where, while dancing and rehearsing the company, he also taught a group of children from a local "favela" and finally in 2003 Pedro joined the Netherlands Dance Theatre-I, where he worked with choreographers such as Jiri Kylian, Crystal Pite and Meryl Tankard (amongst others). For two years he was also partially responsible for the organization of this company's choreographic workshops. Since 2006, Pedro has choreographed extensively for the Korzo Production House in The Hague (The Netherlands), as well as participated both as dancer and choreographer in Carlos Saura's movie 'Fados' He has also taught as a guest teacher in companies such as Gothenburg Ballet (Sweden), NDT-II and Scapino Ballet (The Netherlands), Compania Nacional de Danza (Spain) and the Cedar Lake Ballet in New York (amongst others). In 2007 he choreographed 'Zullia' for the Portuguese Contemporary Ballet Company and was subsequently appointed its artistic director, position that he held until the end of the year. In the last couple of years Pedro has been collaborating with artists of other artistic mediums. In 2008, together with the Dutch writer Bianca Boer, he was invited by the CaDance Festival in co-production with the Crossing Border Festival to choreograph Butterfly Hips. In 2009 he choreographed with the visual artists Hee-Seung Choi Inside the Outside and with Yoko Seyama and Lyndsey Housden made Drosera Capensis for the Holland Dance Festival. Pedro also participated as a performer/choreographer in Nika Neelova (visual artist) and Billy Bultheel (sound artist) in their end of the year project Carpet IV, in which Pedro danced on a 20.000 eggshells weaved carpet. Pedro is currently living between The Hague and Lisbon, and complements his freelance choreographic, teacher and dance works with academic studies of History of Art at the Open University.