Yoshua Cienfuegos holds a degree in Dramatic Arts from ITAE (Asturias, 1994), trained in contemporary dance at the Institut del Teatre in Barcelona (1999), and completed a Master’s degree in Performing Arts at URJC (2019). He is a leading choreographer and stage director within the contemporary Spanish dance scene. A founding member of the Academy of Performing Arts of Spain, he has led and choreographed the independent company CienfuegosDanza since 1999. With nearly three decades of trajectory, the company has produced more than 35 stage works distinguished by their creative innovation, exploration of movement, and ongoing research into the relationship between scenic and sonic space. His creations reflect a deep choreographic and compositional knowledge, which he applies through his own original methodological system.

Beyond his work with the company, Cienfuegos has been invited to create for prestigious companies such as the Ballet Contemporáneo del Teatro San Martín in Buenos Aires, the Teatro del Bicentenario in San Juan (Argentina), the National Dance Company of Costa Rica, FCND Venezuela, and the National Dance Company of El Salvador, among others. Over the course of his career, he has developed a rigorous and committed body of work that has earned him significant national and international recognition, as well as critical acclaim and audience appreciation for his artistic maturity. His work is defined by versatility, a refined aesthetic, and a distinctive approach to movement.

Cienfuegos combines artistic direction with the development of singular projects focused on artistic research, training, and dissemination, and regularly gives lectures and workshops on his creative methodology. Since 2013, he has directed Estancias Coreográficas, a platform for encounter, dialogue, and choreographic development. He has also served as Coordinator of the Dance Programme at the University of Valencia, Artistic Coordinator of the International Dance Days of Riba-roja de Túria, and Director of the Training and Research Encounters (EFI), as well as leading the community dance project Poblats en Dansa. He is currently part of the Composition faculty at the Higher Conservatory of Dance of Madrid (CSDMA).

In 2009, after a decade dedicated to producing dance works, he initiated a profound shift in his choreographic approach, developing new stylistic codes that opened a renewed artistic and methodological line of work. This led to the creation of pieces in diverse contexts and formats, including LeØnardo with the National Dance Company of Costa Rica at the Festival Iberoamericano de las Artes and the National Theatre of San José, Matar a Cupido with the National Dance Company of Venezuela, 1,618… DAVINCI with CienfuegosDanza, and 26º 10’ W with the National Dance Company of El Salvador. This research-driven process led to the National Dance Award of Costa Rica in 2010 for best choreographic work.

The outcomes of this artistic trajectory have also been documented in one of the few doctoral theses dedicated to the study and evolution of a choreographic practice and its pedagogical application: Programa de Optimización del Movimiento (PrO-M): Compañía Cienfuegos Danza, by Dr. Leticia Ñeco.

Among his subsequent works are ODEIM, Le Spectre de la Rose, and La Bella Durmiente?. In 2014, marking the 15th anniversary of CienfuegosDanza, he premiered his personal reinterpretations of two iconic choreographic works: The Afternoon of a Faun and The Rite of Spring, which received two nominations at the XIX Max Awards. He also restaged Claustrofobia (ODEIM) for 15 dancers at the Ballet Contemporáneo del Teatro San Martín in Buenos Aires, under the direction of Mauricio Wainrot, receiving critical acclaim and being invited by Julio Bocca to lead a choreographic workshop at Ballet Nacional Sodre. He later created Nocaut for the Dance Department of the University of Malta. In 2015, he premiered Entreactos for Ballet de la Generalitat Valenciana and Pronto for Ballet Jove de Bari. In 2016, he created 88 Azucenas y un perro, once again receiving nominations for Best Choreography and Best Dance Production at the Max Awards.

In 2018, in addition to directing Kailo, a children’s production by YAPADU, he co-created Fase Alterna with Marco Flores and Olga Pericet (also nominated for Max Awards), and choreographed Amazonas for the 64th International Classical Theatre Festival of Mérida, directed by Magüi Mira. That same year, he premiered the double programme Tábula Rasa / Viejas, presenting two contrasting choreographic works drawing from neoclassical and folkloric sources.

To mark the 20th anniversary of CienfuegosDanza, he created Réquiem, a large-scale production integrating contemporary dance, Spanish dance, live music, text, and audiovisual elements. The work was revived in 2021 at the Teatro del Bicentenario in San Juan (Argentina) with 21 performers, including tenor Santiago Martínez from Teatro Colón.

In 2021, he created aISLA2, a project exploring new virtual methodologies for artistic creation and further developing his choreographic composition tools, reinforcing a long-standing artistic and conceptual identity.

In his most recent stage, his work has deepened a line of research where creation and choreographic thinking are inseparable. In this context, he created MADAME (2023), a work that revisits the figure of Madame Warton and her tableaux vivants, establishing a dialogue between performance, history, and contemporary thought. The piece is based on research by Professor Laura Monrós-Gaspar within the “Literature, Arts and Performance” research group at the University of Valencia, translating a theoretical framework into choreographic language.

Alongside this, he has undertaken commissioned works such as Salomé (2023), presented at the International Classical Theatre Festival of Mérida under the direction of Magüi Mira.

In 2024, marking the 25th anniversary of CienfuegosDanza, he created Pentagrama, a work that embodies his methodological research in choreographic composition, presented alongside a revisiting of iconic duets from the company’s repertoire.

In 2026, he premiered EMIGRADAS, a work that explores migration through the body as a living archive, understanding movement as testimony and a tool for identity construction, further consolidating a practice in which performance and research are deeply intertwined.

His work continues to expand, inspiring performers, researchers, pedagogues, and creators, and consolidating a trajectory that understands dance as a space for knowledge, experience, and transformation.