Originally from Wilmington, Delaware, Raphael Xavier is an award-winning artist and alumnus of the world renowned Hip Hop dance company, Rennie Harris Puremovement. He is a 2013 Pew Fellow, 2014 MacDowell Fellow,  2016 Guggenheim Fellow and 2016 United States Artist Fellow as well as many others. Xavier has been working in a variety of fields over the course of his career including photography, visual arts, filmmaking and music production. 

 

A self-taught Hip Hop dancer and Breaking practitioner since 1983, Xavier continues to learn and recreate new ways to expand the vocabulary of the dance form through constant research of the culture, performance, practice and by staying present in the community. His extensive research in Hip Hop forms and culture, specifically Breaking, has led to the creation of Ground-Core, a Somatic dance technique that gives the practitioner a better understanding of the body within all dance forms. His goal is to make the form accessible to any body type and level. Ground-Core technique is featured in most of his choreography and repertory works.

 

His current work includes, Swerve·Eli-a short film and Skiff·A Rhyme on a Crimson Wave, a thearte and dance production inspired by the Old Man and the Sea. A look at his own life as an artist over the last 40 years. 

 

Xavier currently lives in Philadelphia and is a lecturer at Princeton University.