selected PROJECTS 



“The Double Sun”(film installation)

IM KONSTHALL, artists in residence program and creation in collaboration with Pato Bosich and Daniel Bosich
Organised by Moskosel Creative Lab—Northern Sustainable Futures, Moskosel, Sweden, OCT 2022 
images©Margarita Zafrilla Olayo





Associazione Entròpia Collevecchio Theatre (Artists in Residence Program)
With artists and musicians Maya Kadish, Agnieszka Opiola. Organised by Mayah Kadish
Collevecchio, Italy, AUG 2022




WATOU 2O22, SENSE OF PLACE (performance, films & photo exhibition)
Kunstenfestival Watou & James Putnam, Koen Vanmechelen and Michaël Vandebril, Watou, Poperinge, Belgium, 2 JUL-4 SEP 2022
images©Margarita Zafrilla Olayo & Kunstenfestival Watou




Unique artist’s book edition of 11 at the Kunstenfestival Watou’s shop — WATOU 2O22, SENSE OF PLACE



The Eyes of the I (films & photo prints exhibition)
ZONA MACO Art Fair & Barn Bradenstoke, México City, FEB 2022
images©Margarita Zafrilla Olayo.



“They who dream by day”, 2021, chromogenic print, 120 cm x 65 cm 



Dancing on the Edge (performance)
Three Highgate Symposia, Three Highgate art gallery, London UK, DEC 2021
In collaboration with Lizzy Le Quesne and Carolyn Roy. Photo: Pato Bosich 
images©Margarita Zafrilla Olayo


A CALL FOR RADICAL EMPATHY (film) 
Botany Bay, Margate UK, SEP 2021

A film with The School of Hope — young creative art international program, directed by Naomi Waring, produced by The Paper Birds, commissioning partners National theatre Young People’s Program, the Mercury, Colchester Theatre Centre, London CAST, Doncaster Sheffield Theatres. In the images and film are Athena Rose, Ahmad Neamah, Jennifer Howitt, Sara Warren. images©Margarita Zafrilla Olayo. 




TiLTING VERTICALITIES (performance) 
Imperial War Museum Park, International Festival of Learning by Independent Dance, London UK, 22 JUL 2021.

Performance activation: Iris Chan, Pepa Ubera, Carolyn Roy, Claudia Tonietto, Laura Doehler, Marina Collard & Alexandra Baybutt and festival members and general public in the park. photography©Anne Tetzlaff and Nikki Tomlinson. 

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The Floating Book ix (performance installation)
Middlesex University and Independent Dance, Kinesthesia Moving Image Festival, London UK, 16-18 JUL 2021

“Giving each other their own quality is an alchemical process, the volatile becomes solid and the solid turns volatile, and a new state is produced; neither rising nor dropping means to float with its pages…”

Performance installation by Margarita Zafrilla Olayo and Pato Bosich
With music by Maria Sideri, Kirill Shirokov and Donizetti

Kinesthesia Moving Image Festival, experiencing film and moving image work from an embodied perspective and tune into movement beyond its visual impact. Initiated by artists Dominique Rivoal and Claire Loussouarn, curated and produced collectively by them and together with freelance film curator Gitta Wigro and co-directors of Independent Dance Heni Hale and Nikki Tomlinson. photography©Fave



Prelude (film)
LOOP Barcelona City Screen and Juan Naranjo Galeria de Arte y Documentos, Barcelona Spain, 16-22 NOV 2020

Film & editing Margarita Zafrilla Olayo
Dance Margarita Zafrilla Olayo
Drawing Pato Bosich
Music Claude Debussy, Prelude à l'après-midi d'un faune, London Symphony Orchestra, Pierre Monteu
film stills©Margarita Zafrilla Olayo




T/LTING VERTICALITIES (performance)
Ritratti D'Artista, Ascoli Piceno Italy,  11-13 SEP 2020

Artists residence and performance program - Teatro Ventidio Basso and public sharing at the Chiostro di Sant'Agostino.
Performed by Maria Rita Salvi, Maria Angela Pespani, Ivana Pierantozzi, Luana Milani, Veronica Vagnoni, Valeria Scrivimi, Silvia Capponi, Cecilia Ventriglia and Margarita Zafrilla Olayo. photography©Marco Biancucci.



The Floating Book, act vxiii (performance installation)
OPEN CHOREOGRAPHY PERFORMANCE EVENING, Siobhan Davies Studios, London UK, 6 MAR 2020

“… I raise the temperature of the blood higher than that of the surrounding air by means of my burner, obtaining thus, a greater pressure on the dilation of shapes, which rise in proportion to the expansion of feelings. Beyond the surface, not many can tell what I am now seeing, for buried within the depths of the earth there is the incandescence of a lava to which I belong.

This secret elasticity frightens the horizon, it is so vertiginous that I am forced to participate in a cosmic body that is sweeping everything away to keep alive. Its anatomy is huge and it must be lived. Giving each other their own quality is an alchemical process, the volatile becomes solid and the solid turns volatile, and a new state is produced; neither raising nor dropping means to float with its pages…"

Performance installation with artist Pato Bosich
photography©Jemima Yong
film stills©Margarita zafrilla Olayo



Folds and traces in my shapes & TiLTING VERTICALITIES_living document of dance (performance)
Tate Britain, London UK, 11 DEC 2019

Presenting with Tate Britain Archives in a collective exhibition/exchange with the Royal College of Art Situated Practice group Archive(r); a collaboration with Vicky Yijia Tang - body as an archive/battlefield: how to archive a work that refuses to be archived. An experiment how to document live art? photography©Margarita Zafrilla Olayo




T/LTING VERTICALITIES
MACRO ASILO @ MACRO—Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Roma, Roma Italy, 1 NOV 2019

Choreographic sculpture: Margarita Zafrilla
Performance: Margarita Zafrilla, Lizzy Le Quesne, Maria Rita Salvi, Claudia Pelliccia, Davide Sportelli, Sabine Rivière
Music: Meilyr Jones, Timothy Cape, Peter Bellchamber
Costumes: Margarita Zafrilla with Drawings: Pato Bosich
Technical assistance: Maria Gil and Natalia Jimenez Santos
This project has been funded with the support of artist Pato Bosich
MACRO ASYLUM Dating Area
photography©Stefano Ciafardoni
video©Monkeys Video Lab

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light, my, matters (performance reading)
LADA - Life Art Development Agency, London UK, 1 OCT 2019

Presenting with author Mara Polgovsky Ezcurra and her book launch ‘Touched Bodies: The Performative Turn in Latin American Art’. film still and photography©Margariat Zafrilla Olayo. book image©Marga Polgovsky.



NORTHERN SUSTAIBLE FUTURES (installation and performance)
Artist in residence program, Moskosel Creative Lab, Moskosel, Lapland Sweden, 4 -18 AUG 2019



TiLTING VERTICALITIES _living document of a dance (performance)
ART & TALKING gallery, Berlin Germany, 30 AUG & 1 SEP 2019

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NORTHERN SUSTAIBLE FUTURES (performance, installation & workshops)
Artist in residence program, Northern Sustainable Futures and Moskosel Creative Lab, Moskosel Lapland Sweden, 15-30 Jul 2019



FLOATING INTO TiLTING (performance and film installation) 
Art & Talking at ALITHEIA Gallery, coinciding with the 58th Venice Biennale, Italy, 23 & 26 JUN, 2019

With artsits Pato Bosich. Thanks to the support of Michael Bucknell and Art & Talking - a small gallery and project space based in Berlin Treptow, with material focus on enabling cross-cultural discourses and encouraging international exchange.



FLOATING INTO TiLTING (performance)
To coincide with the 58th Venice Biennale, Italy, 2019

James Putnam & Gervasutti Foundation, St. Marks Square and Palazzo Donà dalle Rose, Fondamente NoveItaly, 5 - 7 MAY

and

with GAD ― Giudecca Art Distric, 2 JULY, 2019
Within Body as Home exhibition by Aleksandra Karpowicz with October! Collective, curated by Miguel Mallol
Special thanks to the contribution of dancers Eleonora Fraccaro and Anna Trotter. photography©Margarita Zafrilla Olayo

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TiLTING VERTICALITIES (film)
HD film, colour, 7min, London, 2017

A choreographic object and dancing sculpture, performing a movement conversation and dance meditation with the public, together revisiting notions equilibrium, trust and support.

A dance inviting us to step into moving inside and outside an material object; an elastic band suspended between two or more of us, communicating through our vertical stands; balancing with different structural tensions, inclinations, orientation and impressions.

This choreographic object circulates elastically with the continuation of the very material it constitutes. It reassembles movement materials from my lived experience as a dancer; playing & sharing one’s own balance and moving & being moved at the same time. It balances requiring the physical interaction of the viewer to complete the work; stepping into elastic bands, tilting together. It creates a space where the re-orientation of our own vertical lives can actually happen, balancing and rebalancing tension through the feeling of movement in direct relation to each other, liberating a prelinguistic form of knowledge, and revisiting notions of trust. It collaboratively redefines the grounds that base our actions in a peaceful and unifying act of engagement in touch.

Beyond this choreographic material and with the immediacy of our perceptual movement experiences, this artwork invites the public to reimagine, reanimate and sustain dances, rituals, dimensions of being and caring together through conversations on equilibrium, interdependences, stability and change.

Affecting effects towards peaceful states.

TiLTING VERTICALITIES__a 'live document of a dance'__elastic bands__rebalancing__anchoring intofloating__a dancer proposes (HD film, 3min)
by Margarita Zafrilla Olayo tilting with Cleo Tabakian

film stills©Margarita Zafrilla Olayo

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T h e   F l o a t i n g  B o o k  V I (film installation)
Artists own studio space, London UK, during 2017-18

An interdisciplinary collaboration between artists Margarita Zafrilla Olayo and Pato Bosich. This ongoing choreographic conversation is developed through allowing each other to gift their own qualities; neither raising nor dropping, unable to negotiate, means to float with its pages. The Floating Book grew from concerns that both practitioners had; the impossibility of seeing oneself from the outside while in movement, and the necessity of setting in motion stables frames that interrelate. In the frames, the ‘static’ materiality of the painting is given a new life by virtue of the moving image. The dancing of the film gains stability by resting in the painted and gilded surface of the wooden panel which houses the dance. Like through an alchemical process, where the volatile becomes solid and the solid turns volatile, and a new state is produced.

Within the installation, T h e    F l o a t i n g   B o o k___V e n u s   b y   t h e   r i v e r is a chapter that reads as a dance film and painting coming together: an arch from antiquity amidst the city, a temple and a blood stained planet welcome the film on their surfaces. We meet Venus through the moving image, herself the author and creator of her own self. She traces her new birth through the constant passing between the movement of light and gestural figuration. Light(ness) and colour come together by floating beyond themselves into the aesthetic unity that resides in the viewer’s body. film stills©Margariat Zafrilla Olayo




THE CHASE (performance)
London and  Paris artists’ studio space 24th FEB 2019

A dance & music piece in 21 minutes, playing with transformations of the same, changes of organisation in us, folding & unfolding an elementary cosmogony in the midst of technological dialogues. We will be connecting to future distances and proximal beings while being (re)transmitted simultaneously to a gathering of poets in Paris.

By Margarita Zafrilla Olayo & Cleo Tabakian with artists, Theo Finkel, Raisa Bosich, Rosalie Wahlfrid, Mara Polgovsky, Chus Gil.photography © Mark C Long and digital mark©Margarita Zafrilla Olayo




FIGURATION (performance)
DARC - Documentation Action Research Collective, London, UK, 13 MAR 2016.

A choreographic exhibition of a dance, a light body navigating formations, in transient force, neither internal nor external. In silence. Subterranean in movement. An invisible one. While I am passing, movement is taking form. Stage by stage. Gestures clad in shapes

Choreography and dance Margarita Zafrilla Olayo
With Kirill Shirokov, music (songbook #2); Sasha Elina, flute
image & collage©Margarita Zafrilla. drawing©Pato Bosich. photography©Holly Revell



After Netherworld (performance)
Galería Pasaje 865, CIPAC - International Centre For Contemporary Art and Thought, Buenos Aires, Argentina, MAY 2015

Within Pato Bosich's Netherworld art exhibition. photography©Sergio cruz. digital mark©Margarita Zafrilla



Shape Shifting (performance)
Instituto Húngaro, Buenos Aires, Argentina, MAY 2015

Shape shifting from within, shape shifting from without.
photography©Matias Roth. digital mark©Margarita Zafrilla Olayo



Musical Images (performance research)
Arts Council of Wales, Meilyr Jones’ Research & Development, London, JUN 2014.

movement direction: Margarita Zafrilla Olayo
witht artist and musicians Flora Curzon,
Anisa Arslanagic and Mayah Kadish
film still images © Margarita Zafrilla Olayo



Glossary of 9, slightly darker than all other green
Studio Theatre, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Dance and Music, MA degree showcase, London, Uk, JUL 2014.
photography © Francisca Gardiazabal



WithNoTitle (performance)
The University of Surrey, conference: WHAT IS PERFORMANCE PHILOSOPHY? STAGING A NEW FIELD, Surrey, Guildford, UK, APR 2013

What is Performance Philosophy? Staging a new field will be the inaugural conference of the new professional association, PERFORMANCE PHILOSOPHY. The aim of the conference is to explore the scope and diversity of research being undertaken by scholars and practitioners concerned with the relationship between performance and philosophy broadly construed.

Co-organized by
Laura Cull (University of Surrey)
Eve Katsouraki (University of East London)
Dan Watt (Loughborough University)

Confirmed keynotes:
Professor Martin Puchner (Harvard)
Professor Bojana Kunst (Giessen)
Professor Andrew Bowie (Royal Holloway, University of London)

Kindly sponsored by:
The University of Surrey, Loughborough University, the University of East London & the practice.research.unit at Kingston University




S&HC— SPIRALS & HORIZONTAL CONNECTIONS (performance and event)
Supported by Independent Dance and hosted at Siobhan Davies Dance Studios, London UK, 2012

Three dance artists take the plunge into the limits of comprehension by proposing a series of performance frames that question the action of seeing, doing and knowing. We are a research based collective of independent dance artists embarking on a long-term project geared towards exploring questions on the nature of experience and it’s relation to knowledge.

Spirals & Horizontal Connections invites researchers from the fields of art, science and philosophy to exchange ideas and be curious together. Our current topic is embodiment.

S p i r a l s:
3 performance frames presented by dance artists Natalie Heller, Andrea Puerta and Margarita Zafrilla Olayo.

H o r i z o n t a l C o n n e c t i o n s:
An Open Dialogue between artists and audience members.

Chaired by Kirsty Alexander, Higher Education advisor to Independent Dance and Associate Editor Journal of dance and Somatic Practices. Guest collaborator: Vincent Walsh, Human brain researcher, University College London. Guest audience member: Chrissie Harrington, Head of Arts & Humanities, University Campus Suffolk. photography © Francisca Gardiazabal.



words, crawl, bells, round (performance)
Supported by Independent Dance at Shioban Davies Dance Studios, London UK, 2012

Within Spirals and Horizontal Connections - an experimental research dance platform, exploring questions on knowledge, how it is acquired and passed on. What does it entail to research something through movement? How do we track and archive embodied research? How does movement allow us to understand the world around us? What if the performance event is the research?

Spirals: 3 performance frames presented by dance artists Natalie Heller, Andrea Puerta and Margarita Zafrilla Olayo

Horizontal Connections: An Open Dialogue between artists and audience members

Chaired by Kirsty Alexander, Higher Education advisor, former co director of Independent Dance and Associate Editor Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices
Guest collaborator: Vincent Walsh, Human brain researcher, University College London
Guest audience member: Chrissie Harrington, Head of Arts & Humanities, University Campus Suffolk
photography © Francisca Gardiazabal



Itinerarium (performance)
Robin Howard Dance Theatre, The Place, Resolution! festival, London, UK, 2010


Metaphors of itineraries
The Being of possible itineraries is in each case mine
Entities on a journey / entities of a journey
The Being of possible itineraries is in each case me
Unrelated individuals unfold unexpected itineraries

Concept and choreography Margarita Zafrilla Olayo
Devised and danced by Sebastian Loesener and Margarita Zafrilla Olayo

Music and sound design Fred Defaye, Fahrenheit 59: SonicArt f59sonicart.com
Design Becs Andrews and Margarita Zafrilla Olayo
Lighting Gareth Green
photography © Shira Klasmer


Here and There, two different ones (performance)
Robin Howard Dance Theatre, The Place, Resolution! festival, London UK, 2011

Proximally and for the most part we are here. What happens when we are reached by ourselves projected there?
A dance oscillates between its performer, maker and observer

Choreography and Performance Margarita Zafrilla Olayo
Music arranged and edited Jamie McCarthy
Lighting Gareth Green
Costume design Martina Spetlova
photography © Becs Andrews




Physis (performance)
The Queen's Elm Gallery, WHILE ROME BURNS exhibition, London UK, 2010

Sensing feeling aligned, gravity in lightness alive
grounded heavy bones off balance light momentum
action gesture texture, from the feet to the skull, melting front & back.
listening following flowing, sharp side to side
with your heart, centered, core connection
conscious, alert, attentive
... And let it go when you are ready to move

photography©James Dean Diamond and Toin Adams



Curating and organising WHILE ROME BURNS (performance and event)
The Queen's Elm Gallery, London UK, 2010

Performing artists Daniel Oliver, Linda Remahl, See Chimutengwende, Anak, Sophie Edmonds & Rebecca Bogue, Yale Caravan, Aurea Romero & Alberto Ruiz and Margarita Zafrilla Olayo. photography©Tom Medwell.



Yo soy la desintegración (performance)
PACT Zollverein, Essen, Germany, NOV 2003
Tanzinitiative, Hamburg, germnay, SEP 2004 - with the support of British Council

At PACT Zollverein - Performance Art und Choreographisches Zentrum, Essen Germany, as part of European School Exchanged Programmed, November 2003.And Tanz in Containern | Glamour, installation project by Tanzinitiative Hamburg, providing a stage for dance and theatre in public urban spaces, with artistic direction Irmela Kästner and Barbara Schmidt-Rohr. photography©Stefan Malzkorn and Jobschi Neu.



Public Hanging (performance)
Robin Howard Dance Theatre, The Place, Resolution! festival, London UK, 2004

On display tonight: routine laundry
Line up: suspended
Action: failed falling
Special effect: manic minds

The laundry begins to dance as the folding forces bodies to be suspended.

Concept and choreography Margarita Zafrilla Olayo and Magdalen Hayes
Devised and danced by Ben Duke, Jane Leney, Sarea Hidskes, Courtney Woodward, Magdalen Hayes, Margarita Zafrilla Olayo
Costumes Anne Fortin
Lighting Design Andres Atkinson
Produced by La Ventana Company



Barceloneta - who is that woman hanging from my laundry line? (performance)
Wimbledon School of Art, London UK, 2003
Mimos International Festival du Mime, Perigueux, France, 2004

Synopsis: In 'La Barceloneta", the old fishermen's district in Barcelona, lives a young woman called Maria
She stays in one of the oldest buildings of the barrio, with the laundry lines connecting the balconies of different buildings
One afternoon, as she was hanging her laundry, Maria toppled over the balcony railings and fell through five floors of laundry
The clothes hung by her neighbours cushioned her fall and saved her life

Wimbledon School of Art Graduation Showcase
Choreography and dance Magdalen Hayes & Margarita Zafrilla Olayo
Concept and set design Thomas Pausz
Light Design Marie Le Saux
Music David Leahy (London performance) and Jamie Craggs (Perigueux performance)
Costume Design Miriam Kraut

Video Kekko Danieli at screening Raw Goods Festival, Soundaffairs
Tour through Wales and London 2004
Funded by Ray Finnis Trust
drawing©Thomas Pausz and photography©LaVentana



CIVILISED CHAOS (performance)
Cityscapes - City of London Festival, St. Luke's Church, London UK, 2004

Choreography and Dance Margarita Zafrilla Olayo
Concept, objects and sound José Álvarez

A two-day festival mentored by sound-artist Brian Eno exploring new landscapes in improvisation, across music, art and performance. With students from The Guildhall School of Music, Royal College of Art, London Contemporary Dance School.



Tika Tika Walk (performance)
Robin Howard Dance Theatre, The Place, London UK 2003

London Contemporary Dance School Graduation Showcase with Wimbledon School of Art
Dance and design collaboration Anna Ekholm & Margarita Zafrilla Olayo
Devised and danced by Raquel Meseguer, Susannah Rickman and Luci Mellior
photography©Anna Ekholm