Alejandra Jara (Ale)

Performer, choreographer, dance teacher and certified GAGA teacher based in Palma de Mallorca / Germany.

“I am interested in seeing people’s passion to move while they move, more than wonderful shapes. The possibility to combine choreography with textures, sensations and delicacy is my inspiration when I am working on a new piece.”

Born in Asunción, Paraguay, Alejandra joined the National Ballet of Paraguay in 1999, performing nationally and internationally for nine years in works by Austin Hartel, Ramon Oller, Ruxandra Racovitza, Birgit Asshoff, Teresa Nieto, and others. In 2007, she started teaching the company members and created her first choreographic work for the company. Later she studied for three month at the Instituto Superior de Bellas Artes in Havana CUBA. In 2011, she earned a Master of Fine Arts in Dance from Ohio State University and a year later she completed her training as a certified Gaga instructor in Israel.

Alejandra has received several awards, including the UNESCO Fellowship (2007), the FULBRIGHT Fellowship (2008-2011) and the Fellowship for Women Artists with Children (NRW, 2022). Moreover, she was recognized as one of twenty outstanding women in Paraguay in 2010.

Ale has continued to perform and choreograph her own work. Her solo piece Sentir (Cuba 2007) received honorable mention for performance and choreography in Festival Elsinor. Ale created Finas Agujas  (2007- comissioned for the National Ballet of Paraguay), As if… (USA 2009), Passenger (USA 2010), Transit (videodance 2011), To be (Paraguay 2011), Dame un Momento (Paraguay 2014),  Eco (Germany 2016), IMA (2019) and Beneath (2021).

Her most recent work in film was The Season (2022), where she was a performer and choreographer for Academy Award-winning songwriter and singer Markéta Irglová. This was her third collaboration with Irglová. The first work was The Leading Bird (2014) and the second Among the Living (2021). She also created the short dance film Waiting Room, which she directed and starred in.