Alvaro Restrepo is an anomalous character on the international dance scene. He was born in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, in 1957. He studied piano, philosophy, literature and dramatic art in Bogotá. At the age of 24, he discovered dance and began studying with Argentine teacher Cuca Taburelli. A year later he joined Jennifer Muller's New York company. In New York, Restrepo took classes with Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, and the Korean Cho-Kyoo-Hyun. At the Graham school he won a scholarship and joined the company; his first solo, 'Icecrack', was in 1984. That same year he worked with Remy Charlip in 'Ten Men' and participated both as a dancer and as an assistant in the choreography of his teacher Cho-Kyoo-Hyun's show 'Aga', performed at La Mama Theater.
He returned to Colombia in 1985 and took part in the production of 'O-ilè' by Viviana Villegas. Shortly afterwards she founded the company Athanor Danza in New York and began to elaborate her ritual poem 'Desde la huerta de los mudos', a homage to Federico Garcia Lorca created on the 50th anniversary of his death. Athanor Danza is not a stable group. It brings together artists from different disciplines in order to realise specific projects conceived by the only permanent member of the group: Restrepo. The main objective is the search for new theatrical languages. In March 1986, Restrepo performed his finally completed poem, first in New York and then in Colombia. Here he continued to work as a soloist and choreographer with the Colombian Ballet Company, the Juvenil de Colombia Symphony Orchestra, and the choir of the Tolima Conservatory Orchestra. His 'Rebis', a prologue to the homage to Lorca, was performed in 1987.
