About this Artist

Photo Credit, Tina Trefethen.

DIAVOLO DANCE THEATER is a renowned dance company that reinvents dance, re-imagines theater, and redefines thrills. Diavolo takes movement, athletics, and daring to the extreme, creating abstract narratives about the human experience through surreal tableaux.

Founded in 1992 by Jacques Heim, Diavolo has an extensive performance history in our home city of Los Angeles as well as throughout the U.S, Europe, Asia, and Latin America; in over fourteen seasons of touring, Diavolo has performed for hundreds of thousands of concertgoers worldwide as well as millions more on television. The Company has also created unique performance events for corporate clients such as Wells Fargo, Honda, and General Motors.

In 2007, the Los Angeles Philharmonic commissioned Diavolo to create a trilogy of new dance works, all to premiere live with the orchestra with the Hollywood Bowl. The first two installments—now in Diavolo’s repertory—are Foreign Bodies (2007), set to the music of Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Fearful Symmetries (2010), set to the music of John Adams. The third installment, Fluid Infinities (2013), will be set to Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 3.

Transit Space is Diavolo’s newest piece. Inspired by the movement of skateboarding, Transit Space is the first dance work ever created in residency at Glorya Kaufman presents Dance at the Music Center, Los Angeles. As part of the residency, Diavolo conducted research with local skateboarders and held outdoor rehearsals that were broadcast on ESPN’s SportsCenter. Transit Space received its world premiere this past season at the Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State University as the culminating event of Diavolo’s participation in the national Creative Campus initiative.

Education and outreach are crucial to our mission. With major funding from the James Irvine Foundation, the Diavolo Institute has been launched this year to develop, advance, and disseminate Diavolo technique with a focus on disadvantaged youth. Thousands of students and community members each year attend Diavolo’s student matinees, intensive trainings, master classes, and audience engagement activities.