MEET THE Artists

David Sebastian Lopez Restrepo is a Colombian performance artist who has lived in Denmark since 2017. His work, focusing on social challenges faced by migrants and his own experiences since leaving Colombia in 2008, has been showcased in numerous countries across South America and Europe. Known for combining humor with thought-provoking elements, David incorporates anthropological methods into his performances, often co-creating them to deliver impactful messages. He is the director of Performance Køkkenet in Copenhagen, organizing the Performance Art Festival Body Landscapes and other events in collaboration with organizations like Live Art Denmark, Noisy Beehive, and Tårnby Park Studio. 

ZARZAMORA marks the striking debut of a duo that merges their voices, instruments, and deep-seated passion for improvised music. This album, recorded live at the Festival Polska OFFU 2023 in Goleniów, Poland, embodies the essence of spontaneity and artistic synergy.

Beatriz Gijón Gijón is a multidisciplinary artist skilled in piano, voice, and body movement. She holds a degree in classical piano from the Royal Conservatory of Music of Granada and advanced degrees in rhythmic piano and composition from the Royal Academy of Music of Aarhus. Her work blends diverse musical traditions and art forms, focusing on free improvisation, contemporary composition, and interdisciplinary performances. Beatriz leads the experimental jazz septet ONBEAT, directs the GRANADA IMPROFEST, and collaborates across various artistic disciplines. She also teaches, conducts artistic research, and leads improvisation workshops.
Hubert Karmiński (ꓘrmnƨʞ) is a composer, improviser, and intermedia artist with a background in electronic music from the Danish Institute for Electronic Music and the Royal Academy of Music Aarhus. He also studied theater sound engineering and has a sound engineering title from the Wrocław School of Modern Music. Awarded the 2021 Artistic Scholarship of Poznań, Hubert has worked with prominent artists and debuted as a composer and director with Information Cage in 2023. He currently focuses on the yass quintet Drogi Krajowe and the punk trio Hirjjo.

Pressure and time is a installation performance by Mercedes Balle in collaboration with sound artist Cintia Gómez.
The performance includes a kinetic sculpture in which a line of balls is connected through a wire hunging from a structure: through the gravity and the external agents the sculpture reacts, moves, breaks and falls. Cintia will react with her keyboard and play live, through which the piece will finally break and die to become a yet unknown future art project again.

Cintia Gomez is a pianist, music teacher, composer, singer, choir leader and multimedia artist based in Copenhagen. She explores different artistic fields and is currently focusing on her music projects. She has studied music education to be able to share her passion and love for music.

Mercedez Balle Quiroga is a visual artist based in London. She investigates how to represent the sublime with construction and biodegradable materials. She participates regularly in exhibitions and she’ll do her first solo exhibition in July 2024 at The Stone Space, London. She’s also have an exhibition scheduled for next June at Casal Solleric, Majorca.

Motuz group stands as an evolving force in the realm of interdisciplinary performing arts, shaping its trajectory since 2019. Over the past years, a diverse array of artists has lent their expertise to the collective, steering the group in myriad creative directions. At the heart of Motuz's mission lies a dedicated exploration of the nuanced relationship between improvised music and dance.

Mark Hurrell founded Motuz Group in 2019 at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. Since then he has had a successful career as saxophonist, composer and bandleader playing his and others music across 3 continents to date. He currently resides in Denmark having travelled across Scandinavia studying a masters degree and now academic research in improvised music and dance. 

Hilda Nordkvist is a young bassist with roots in Malmö. In recent years, she has studied jazz around Sweden and Denmark. Her name now appears more and more often on various jazz scenes.

Alice Presencer is a performing artist and performance maker whose work is situated within voice and dance practices. Her artistic endeavors span across various disciplines, including singing, dancing, performance art, filmmaking, and choreography. Through the merging of different artistic practices, she strives to encourage the contemplation of the accepted norms within emotional expression.

Iina Johanson is a jazz vocalist, poet and composer. Improvisation has been in the center of her musical interests for ten years. She lists communication, listening and connection as one of the most important elements in music. Emotion and storytelling are also in the heart of any performance for her. She’s passionate about interdisciplinary art and free improvisation.

Screenings of Granada is a performance specially conceived for GIF 2024, and wants to pay a tribute to the city Granada and the most foundational filmmaker of Spanish avant-garde cinema, José Val del Omar. His selected works for the performance, Aguaespejo Granadino and Variaciones sobre una Granada, have both Granada as the main focus: the first one is a very poetic, deep yet abstract portray of the city mirrored in water, and the second is a sort of psychedelic trip over a pomegranade (in spanish, granada).
Full of surprices, in the performance the two short movies will be set to music: the original concept by Sarvin Asa meets the creativity of renown double bassist Asger Thomsen and the audio-visual aesthetics of Val del Omar will create a unique poetical experience, where strings and bows will show their maximum unconventional potential.  

Sarvin Asa is an Italian-Iranian cellist and performer. She is active both as a classical musician, as a contemporary musician and free improviser, collaborating with experimental artists, dancers and other art forms. Her musical identity expresses itself though a blending between new sounds and traditional echos, experimental techniques and classical feelings, finding a new way to express what has always been existing.
She currently resides in Copenhagen.

Asger Thomsen is a bass player and composer living in Copenhagen, Denmark. He works primarily in the field of contemporary improvised music. With a physical, detail-oriented approach and a rich palette of sounds, often strengthened by the use of unconventional extended techniques, he aims for contrast and dynamic forward motion in his music. Thomsen has established himself as a versatile improviser on the Copenhagen scene, and tours internationally. He is often working in ad hoc settings with other improvisers and with projects such as Rhizom, Engel/Thomsen, and a solo project. He is also organising the DIY concert series Absolute Music in Copenhagen. 

GIF Orchestra
The closing performance will be the result of the 3 days of workshops and exchanges among the dancers, musicians and visual artists attending GIF 2024. 

Artists will be all the artists already mentioned in this page: Sarvin Asa, Mark Hurrel, Cintia Gómez, Beatriz Gijón, Fernando Gómez, Daniel Levy, Zeque Olmo, Jens Peter Møller, Philip Akrofi, Hubert Karminski, David Sebastian López, Mercedes Balle, Anne-Sofie Østergaard, Lina Johanson