ROPA / Roberto Olivan Performing Arts is the company from which Roberto Olivan, choreographer and dancer, impulses, manages and produces all of his artistic projects: in-house productions, workshops, commissions, Festival Deltebre Dansa and L’OBRADOR Espai de Creació.

“We need rhythm. We need to go back and forth between humour and reflection. We need a flexible combination between surprise, games and pain. We need to be taken away to experiences and precise suggestions through movement. We need energy injections and direct beats of thought and emotions. We need dance to be the natural truth that shakes up our consciousness and contract our souls”, Roberto Olivan. 

ROPA / Roberto Olivan Performing Arts was founded by Roberto Olivan in Brussels in 2001 under the name Enclave. At the moment, ROPA / Roberto Olivan Performing Arts has its headquarters, L’OBRADOR Espai de Creació, at the heart of the Ebre Delta (Deltebre, Catalonia, Spain). 

From 2001, the company has been creating, producing and touring its own productions and workshops as well as commissioning. ROPA / Roberto Olivan Performing Arts is also the organiser of the Festival Deltebre Dansa, and driving force of L’OBRADOR Espai de Creació, a centre for contemporary artistic creation dedicated mainly to movement arts. 

THE METHOD

Olivan’s tour around the world has clearly marked his way of understanding it. The contemplation and study of movement has led him to propose a more intimate and revealing universe of delightful and exceptional sensitivity through fusions and constructions of qualitative complexity. Olivan is an open and questioning creator who constantly seeks to distinguish between the established and insurrect. His love for taking risks creates continuous meetings between the traditional signals and the emergence of new logics used as a research mechanism. 

His pieces reflect the choreographer’s unusual perception and his need to establish a dialog with other artistic disciplines. His work usually welcomes diverse elements from different genres through the innate abilities of the interpreters, which are always carefully guided by Olivan himself towards a common destination. This mix of different artistic languages, based on experiences, personality and creativity of the artists themselves, triggers a primal genuine movement; thus, generating a strong and empathetic bond with the viewer.