bio
William Ruiz Morales is a Los Angeles-based Cuban dramaturg who writes on, curates, and creates performances. His practice manifests in research-based experimental collaborative projects such as Restless (2022) with composer Nina Fukuoka and Derrotero (2021) with Gabriela Burdsall.
As an independent researcher, William analyzes networks’s effectiveness as an alternative to current governance structures in the performing arts field. This research is supported in 2024 by a CIPA fellowship as a Research Leader.
Between 2017 and 2020, William created and ran Living Away, an initiative to produce and present experimental work from international artists in the field of live arts. The platform showcased a multitude of practices and living contexts, with a large majority of the works approaching narratives of migration. Some crucial milestones were two Festivals, one in person in 2019 and another online in 2020.
In William’s early career, he worked in Cuba, before leaving the country due to the prospect of an unsustainable future. William had furiously directed performances and theater pieces in Cuba between 2009 and 2017. Among those works are Idomeneo (2014), Woyzcek (2012), Suvenir (2012), Deathvariations (2011), and Protection (2010).
In parallel, William conducted a creative production practice at the margins of Cuban official institutions, breaking ground for new ideas in the country’s extremely conservative performing arts field. William insisted on presenting and producing contemporary art in communities outside Havana as well as in the capital through festivals, workshops, and site-specific projects. For one of these projects, Tools of Society, William won an Ibsen International Scholarship from the Norwegian government in 2012.
William Ruiz Morales 