“Canada’s RUBBERBAND is a joy to behold.”
— Oregon Arts Watch
RUBBERBAND
Founded by Victor Quijada in Montreal in 2002, RUBBERBAND has built a reputation for fusing hip-hop, contemporary dance, and classical technique into a singular choreographic language. Early critical success including the Prix RIDEAU and two appearances in Le Devoir's annual top-five list led to residencies at Usine C and Place des Arts, where works such as Slicing Static, Gravity of Center, and Empirical Quotient took shape.
RUBBERBAND has steadily expanded its artistic scope, from the intimate six-dancer Empirical Quotient to the large-scale City Thread, which brought together company members and 30 student dancers to mark Montreal's 375th anniversary. Ever So Slightly (2018) featured ten performers on the Théâtre Maisonneuve stage and was a finalist for the Grand Prix du Conseil des arts.
Quijada returned to the stage in Trenzado (2020), while the three-act, 12 dancer Reckless Underdog (2023) marked another ambitious step for the company. Quijada’s recent work Second Chances explores themes of origin and belonging, and XXVII co-commissioned by Danse Danse and the National Arts Centre is currently in development and will premiere in fall 2027.
Today, RUBBERBAND stands among Canada's most acclaimed dance companies, touring internationally and earning recognition for its bold, genre-defying vision on stages around the world.
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Since 2002, Choreographer Victor Quijada (pronounced: kee-hah-dah) has redefined the codes of breaking with RUBBERBAND. Through his company and the RUBBERBAND Method, he has invigorated the Quebec choreographic milieu and paved the way for new creators. With over forty creations and collaborations in Canada and around the world, Quijada continues to develop in the midst of a prolific career.
Born to Mexican parents and raised in Los Angeles, Victor Quijada was first trained in the b-boying circles and hip hop clubs of his hometown. He joined Rudy Perez in 1994, moved to THARP! in New York in 1996 and worked with Ballets Tech in 1999 before arriving in Montreal in 2000, where he joined Les Grands Ballets Canadiens.
He founded RUBBERBAND in 2002 as he immersed himself in deconstructing the choreographic principles he had learned by combining them with the raw ideology of street dance. His creations are imbued with a strong theatricality, the energy of improvisation, the codes of cinematic language and are sculpted by an incomparable precision of gesture.
Victor Quijada has created his own technique, the RUBBERBAND Method, made up of an electrifying vocabulary, combining the energy of Hip Hop, the technical rigor of classical ballet and the angular work of contemporary dance.
Quijada has been teaching the RUBBERBAND Method worldwide for many years through various workshops and courses (for numerous dance companies, universities and institutions), and on a recurring basis at his company's bi-annual Montreal workshop, the Winter and Summer Intensives since 2023.