2023-2024 Boston Dancemakers Resident

Simon Montalvo (they/them) is a non-binary/transgender movement artist, researcher, and archivist born on the land of the Coahuiltecan and Karankawan peoples. They’re currently living on the land of the Massachusett and Pawtucket peoples, and are grateful for the generosity of the land that holds them. Simon is interested in movement research that explores the human condition and sociopolitical themes such as gender identity, sexuality, and family dynamics within the home. Through movement exploration, humor, and community, they strive to create work that shares a living history directly from the communities they work with.

Their choreography has been presented by Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Project 31, and TAMUCC. Their dance films have been produced both in Texas and Boston respectively, and their current interest lies in the creation of documentary style interviews of transgender people in the Massachusetts area. Simon was a recipient of the Studio Space Grant through Urbanity Dance in 2023, which allowed them to continue in their research practice. They also participated in aMaSSiT 2023, a choreographic lab, through The Dance Complex in collaboration with Monkeyhouse.

Simon holds a BFA in Contemporary Dance Performance from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and is largely focused on experimental improvisation, dance theatre, radical community care, and moving in forms that make us feel things. They’re interested in creating a community centered around healing, discussion, and intimate comfort. As a neurodivergent movement artist, they welcome the unconventional, the “weird”, and the otherwise excluded people into their spaces to research, to move, and to connect.

Project description

a house with no walls: first floor

a house with no walls: first floor is a project exploring the ways in which we exist internally and externally in the world. It’s a living archive of transgender and gender non-conforming people’s experiences, shared through movement, objects, and the deep intimacy of what it is to be seen as all you are. We will sit around the living room catching up with old and new friends, we will bump into each other in the kitchen as we find nourishment and fullness in each other’s company, and we will receive the gift of living with our hearts fully open; even if just for a moment. We’re glad you’re here with us to continue the fight for visibility, joy, and preservation of our humanity. Let us hold you for a night as you hold our stories. Let’s exchange all the silly ways in which we’re human. Come on in, the door’s open!