​JOHN HENRY GERENA
INTERDISCIPLINARY ARTIST
CREATOR​
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Throughout his journey in the performing arts, he has consistently pursued the recognition of the elements that define his creative identity. After years of research and exploration, he has come to understand that his work can be situated within what he calls “Dance Installation”—a hybrid format that merges choreography, dramaturgy, performance, and spatial composition.
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His dual training as a scenic artist and as a graphic designer/publicist provides him with unique tools to approach image as the core of creation. For him, the image is not only a visual reference but the engine and starting point of the artistic process, shaping both the aesthetic and conceptual dimensions of his work.
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Collaboration is central to his practice. He frequently works with artists from diverse disciplines and dancers from different genres, fostering dialogues that expand the frontiers of his proposals. His creations often merge contemporary dance, performance, and theater, articulated through a concrete dramaturgy where performers’ intentions construct a clear physical and emotional universe. In this way, movement becomes a theatrical manifestation of desire and presence.
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Another defining aspect of his work is the development of long-duration pieces, where persistence, physical wear, fatigue, and endurance generate altered states of consciousness. These states are not only lived by the performers but also resonate with the audience, producing real experiences that challenge perception and blur the boundaries between body, environment, and reality.
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He conceives the artwork as a meeting place—a shared space where spectators confront their own sense of existence, and where the interplay of body, space, and perception is continuously redefined. His multidisciplinary approach situates him at the intersection of scenic arts, visual culture, and installation practices, positioning his work as both immersive and transformative.
Some of most representative works: (Click on title to watch the video).
INTERDISCIPLINARY PIECE
This work is conceived as an interdisciplinary creation that is simultaneously installation, performance, and video art. It integrates space, imagery, sound, objects, and the body to construct an immersive environment where perception is continuously challenged and redefined.
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The central concept emerges from an inquiry into the distortion of imagery through artificial means—mirrors, surveillance cameras, projectors—examining how visual information is transformed and altered for the viewer.
Through projections, overlays, volumes, reflections, and refractions, the piece engages with notions of ubiquity, spatial alteration, dimensionality, and the perception of reality.
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The first stage of research was supported by the Quebec Arts Council (Territorial Partnership Program – Abitibi-Témiscamingue 2023–2024) and by L’Écart in Rouyn-Noranda, providing the framework for its initial development.
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Credits:
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Creation and performance: John Gerena
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External perspective and dramaturgical support: Eduardo Ruiz
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Photography: Fernando Belote
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Date: June 2024
This work allows John Gerena to capture his origins, his present, and the influence of his Latin American heritage in the face of modern colonialism. It is a solo performance that embraces his existence, gestures, physicality, and presence—the sensitive, living, and vibrant imprint of his journey as performer, choreographer, and human being.
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The piece resonates as a soliloquy of body and soul, evoking intimate peregrinations and perpetual transformations. On stage, it unfolds as an exploration of bodily anecdotes, migrations, and territories, where movement becomes testimony and memory.
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Integrating dance, color, video, and sound, this work-in-progress pushes the boundaries of discipline and form. It reflects a continuous search for ways in which the body can dialogue with image and sound, creating a layered experience that is both personal and universal.
Developed with the support of the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the piece was presented in Rouyn-Noranda, 2023.
Rouyn-Noranda 2023. www.calq.gouv.qc.ca
THE STRANGER
What does it mean to be an immigrant? What does it mean to be a foreigner in a strange land?
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The Stranger is a contemporary dance piece that gathers the accumulation of sensations and emotions experienced by immigrants, regardless of their origins or reasons for migration. Rather than offering a critical view of the migratory crisis, the work turns inward, exploring the individual’s inner landscape: loneliness, nostalgia, anxiety, expectation, displacement, and relocation.
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On stage, these experiences unfold through bodies, spaces, and relationships, evoking loss and reward, emptiness and agitation, disorientation and imbalance, questioning and dispossession. The piece becomes a physical and emotional cartography of migration, where movement embodies the fragile balance between uprooting and belonging.
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Developed during a choreographic residency in San Sebastián (Spanish Basque Country, 2018), the work was supported by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Dantzaz, Tabakalera, and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Through the rhythms of bolero, son, salsa, and tango, Lágrimas Negras – Black Tears evokes the romantic universe of the couple—men and women who love and hate, who inhabit stories of passion, forgetfulness, and seduction.
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This contemporary dance piece reflects the idiosyncrasy of Latin American culture regarding love, desire, and relationships. It integrates diverse Latin American rhythms with the dramaturgy and aesthetics of contemporary dance, creating a dialogue between tradition and modernity, intimacy and theatricality.
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The work embodies a fusion of movement, music, and emotion, where the body becomes a vessel for collective memory and cultural resonance.
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Year of creation: 2016
Fetish is a work in progress by John Gerena, with sound design by Edgardo Moreno, video design by Peter Riddihough, and staging by Sector N Collective.
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The piece is conceived as part dance performance, part art installation, and part immersive sound collage. It is a meditation on the relationship between the body, ritual, and gesture, exploring how acts of spiritual devotion are embodied, repeated, and transformed through movement, sound, and image.
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By weaving together choreography, installation, and sonic environments, Fetish creates a space where the body becomes both subject and object of contemplation—an instrument of ritual and a site of resonance.
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Research supported by the Ontario Arts Council, 2016.
War and violence permeate everyday life across the world, yet despite desperation, suffering, and hopelessness, people continue to dance and celebrate existence.
Bermejo is an abstraction of this paradox: the blood that drenches the earth, the color of violence, contrasted with the will of the people to remain joyful—the fight for life persists.
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The piece reflects on anger and war in Colombia, evoking the blood that stains the land while highlighting the resilience, hope, and determination that characterize its people. It portrays a country divided between those who seek to destroy and mistreat, and those who remain strong in the face of adversity.
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Created in 2013, Bermejo is both a poetic reflection and a choreographic meditation on violence, resistance, and the enduring desire to move forward.
Something About Me is an autobiographical solo that revisits significant moments in the artist’s life—moments he associates with the contrasting symbolism of black and white, colors that have become central to the aesthetic of his work.
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The piece began as a reflection on the possible states of a man confronting the inevitability of the future. In presenting this subjective world, the artist sought to explore how such complexity is experienced universally, situating personal memory within the broader uncertainty of modern society.
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Through movement, presence, and gesture, the solo becomes both intimate testimony and collective metaphor, a meditation on existence, transformation, and the fragile balance between past and future.
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Year of creation: 2012
The Trap is a contemporary dance work based on the idea that destiny inevitably shapes our lives—no matter what choices we make, every action becomes part of that path.
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Conceived as a piece that can be performed both indoors and in open spaces, it unfolds over approximately 50 minutes, creating a flexible format that adapts to different environments while maintaining its conceptual core.
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Through movement and presence, the work reflects on the paradox of freedom and inevitability: “The path you choose will lead you to it.”
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Year of creation: 2010
In solitude, melancholy becomes our most assiduous companion. Melancholia originates from a reflection on the loneliness that accompanies modern life, and through the language of contemporary dance, it examines this state to which we are all potentially destined.
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We move in shoals of individuals, immersed in personalized worlds, crossing paths yet never truly encountering one another. The piece explores this paradox of proximity and isolation, translating it into movement, gesture, and presence.
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Created in 2009, Melancholia is both a meditation on solitude and a choreographic exploration of modern existence, where dance becomes a mirror of the fragmented relationships and silent distances that define contemporary society
Directed by Funarte and the Secretary of Culture of the State of Ceará (Brazil), Outras Danças: Brazil, Chile, Colombia was a multidisciplinary project carried out during the second half of 2011. It combined artistic, academic, and educational activities, fostering exchange and creation across Latin America.
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The program brought together 26 Brazilian artists for a residency focused on research and the creation of solo and duet works. The residencies were directed by choreographers John Henry Gerena (Colombia) and José Luis Vidal (Chile), each leading a group of thirteen dancers selected through a democratic process.
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Over a period of 30 days, the participants developed creative processes alongside the guest choreographers, resulting in original choreographies presented at the “Solos and Duos” Festival.
This video dance project, conceived around the expressive potential of the blue color, was developed in collaboration with hip-hop dancers and filmed in Bogotá in 2013.
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The work explores the intersection between urban dance, visual aesthetics, and video art, using color as a central axis to evoke mood, rhythm, and atmosphere.
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With the special participation of Camilo Dias, the project highlights the dialogue between contemporary visual experimentation and the vitality of street dance culture.