Susana Pous, director and choreographer of MiCOMPAÑIA, Cuban contemporary dance company based in Havana.
Born in 1971 in Barcelona, where she studied dance, performance and direction in parallel at the Catalonian Centre for Cinematographic Studies.
Later she went on to complete her studies in New York at the Martha Graham Centre and DanSpace, participating in the American Dance Festival in Durham. She worked as dancer and artistic assistant in Satsumas (directed by Mercé Boronat), Pepe Havia Dance Company, and Transit (directed by Maria Rovira).
She settled in Havana in 1998.
For more than 18 years she developed her career within the context of DanzAbierta, first as dancer and teacher, and later as its exclusive in-house choreographer, and then director. She led the company to international success with her works: MalSon, [What to expect when you are expecting], Showroom and Welcome. A notable feature of her work is collaboration and exchange with contemporary Cuban designers, visual artists and musicians.
Susana has established herself as one of the most relevant and creative voices in Cuban performing arts, not only for the innovation and quality which she has brought to choreography on the island, but also because of her profound use of Cuban cultural memory in the choreographic process.
She has received awarded national and international awards and is critically acclaimed.
Winner of the Institut Fancais’ Prize at the Caribbean Dance Biennial. She has also received prestigious awards in Cuba including the Critic’s Villanueva award and the UNEAC Award for Best Choreography, and the Southern Exposure scholarship in the United States.
Her Works have toured internationally allowing her to participate in prestigious festivals the whole world over including Montpellier, Avignon, and Metz festivals (France), Holland Dance Festival (Netherlands), SIDANCE (Korea), Schrittmacher and Oldenburg festivals (Germany), Sziget (Hungary), Jacob’s Pillow, New York Joyce Theater, Chicago Athaeneum, Miami Dade County Auditorium, Pennsylvania University, Boston Institute of Arts and Dance Place Washington DC (US), Hainan Opera Theater (China), Danse Encore (Canada) as well as tours in Northern and Latin America, Europe, the Caribbean and the most important theatres in Cuba.
She has created collaboratively with other artists including Radhouane El Meddeb (France), Jan Bartozec (United States) and the National Contemporary Company (Colombia).
She is also featured artist and leading voice in the campaign against domestic violence towards women and girls in Cuba.
In 2017 she created VillaLola, a space for creation, exchange and artistic formation, as well as being her company’s headquarters in Havana.
In 2018 she founded her own company, MiCOMPAÑIA, in order to be more faithful to her own artistic vision.
In April of 2019 she premiered her latest work, Infinito, the first creation for MiCOMPAÑIA which received the Critic’s Villanueva Award 2019.
