Raphael Xavier

Raphael Xavier is an award winning artist from Wilmington, Delaware. Now living in Philadelphia, he is a self taught Breaking practitioner since 1983. Raphael has forged an exceptional approach to improvisation. Brenda Dixon Gottschild deemed Xavier, ‘A fine movement technician’. Searching for a fresh new approach to expand the vocabulary of the dance form has not only come from the culture, but his music and visual background. He is a 2013 Pew Fellow and 2014 Macdowell Fellow 2016 Guggenheim Fellow and 2017 United States Artist Fellow. In a continuation and extention of his craft he has taught a technique called Ground Core. A movement technique that makes the Breaking form accessible to any moving body and is incorporated in the vocabulary he uses in the dance work. His company represents Breaking and its roots as his work sheds light on the sustainability and longevity of the form. Raphael is currently a Professor at Princeton University teaching Special Topics in Urban Dance, Style and Traditions in Hip Hop Culture with a focus on Breaking.