Victor Quijada

Since 2002, Victor Quijada has redefined the codes of breakdance with RUBBERBAND. Through his company and the RUBBERBAND Method, he has invigorated the Quebec choreographic milieu and paved the way for new creators. With over forty creations and collaborations in Canada and around the world, Quijada continues to develop in the midst of a prolific career.
Born to Mexican parents and raised in Los Angeles, Victor Quijada was first trained in the b-boying circles and hip hop clubs of his hometown. He joined Rudy Perez in 1994, moved to THARP! in New York in 1996 and worked with Les Ballets Tech in 1999 before arriving in Montreal in 2000, where he joined Les Grands Ballets Canadiens.
He founded RUBBERBAND in 2002 as he immersed himself in deconstructing the choreographic principles he had learned by combining them with the raw ideology of urban dance. His creations are imbued with a strong theatricality, the energy of improvisation, the codes of cinematic language and are sculpted by an incomparable precision of gesture.

Victor Quijada has created his own technique, the RUBBERBAND Method, made up of an electrifying vocabulary, combining the energy of hip hop, the refinement of classical ballet and the angular work of contemporary dance.
Quijada has been teaching the RUBBERBAND Method worldwide for many years through various workshops and courses (for numerous dance companies, universities and institutions), and on a recurring basis at his company’s bi-annual Montreal workshop, the Winter Intensive, every December, and in June since 2023.

As a guest choreographer, he has created new works with circus and dance companies. He has worked on several occasions with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Pacific Northwest ballet and Scottish Dance Theatre.

In terms of peer recognition, Quijada has been artist-in-residence at Usine C (2004) and Place des Arts (2007-2011), and has received numerous awards. He is the recipient of the National Dance Award Best Modern Repertory (2003, USA), the Bonnie Bird North American Award (2003, England), the Peter Darrell Choreography Award (2003, England), the Canadian Dance Assembly International Outreach Award (2012, Canada), and two Princess Grace Foundation-USA awards (Choreography Fellowship, 2010; Work in Progress Residency, 2016), among others. He has been invited to join the faculty of USC Kaufman in California, alongside William Forsythe from 2016-2020. He was awarded a second PGFA in 2016, in the form of a creative residency at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York.

In December 2017, Victor Quijada received the award for Cultural Diversity at the Prix de la danse de Montréal and was, in 2019, one of the finalists for the 34th Grand Prix du Conseil des arts de Montréal as well as among the four finalists for the 2019 Charles-Biddle Prize, instigated by Culture pour tous and the Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation and Inclusion (MIFI). In 2024, Victor has been named Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for his choreographic work, a prestigious recognition for all his achievements. In 2025, Victor received the Coronation Medal of Charles III and became a Companion of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres du Québec.

Photo: Isabel Rancier