Maria Ines Villasmil was born in Venezuela and has lived in Amsterdam since 1996, becoming a Dutch citizen in 2004. After a career as a sociologist and having developed a parallel dance career – studying dance in New York and her native Venezuela – she moved to Holland to pursue a BA from the School for New Dance Development (SNDO) at the Amsterdam Hogeschool voor de Kunsten. In addition, in 2004 Maria received her Master’s degree in Choreography and New Media - Dance Unlimited. More recently, Maria obtained an MBA in Creative Industries and Cultural Management from the University of Salamanca, Spain.
 

Maria’s teaching in diverse environments – from post war Kosovo, to Montevideo, Caracas, Moscow and Amsterdam – has shaped her vision of the complex relationship between human behaviors and society’s, and has served as a constant source of inspiration to further nurture the relevance of these encounters.

 

Maria travels frequently and extensively to connect with new people and places as a way to further develop her experiences and nurture new ideas to inform her personal research. Topics such as memory, identities, nomadism, collective and individualism have rounded her artistic portfolio and have been a clear source of inspiration in her choreographic work and teaching experiences.
 

Since 2002, she is a staff member of the Amsterdam Hogeschool voor de Kunsten (Amsterdam School of Arts). She also makes contributions as a dance writer and a freelance artist, and she is a founder member of the Dual Dance Project along with her colleague Manuel Perez Torres. DDP is a platform created in 1998 to develop their own interest and pursue their multidisciplinary work. She is also an editor for Dance Magazine SusyQ in Madrid, Spain.