Ruben Chi

Ruben Chi is an Arnhem-based movement artist and choreographer with his origins and being in hip-hop culture. That origin is always the starting point from which he is constantly looking to break through boundaries and barriers: between genres, cultures and disciplines on the way to innovation. In this way he moves naturally between the world of hip-hop battles and the theatre, between the international commercial circuit and the local community.

Chi is co-founder of the well-known Amsterdam Ghetto Funk Collective that spreads Funk culture around the world in the contemporary zeitgeist. Five times in a row he won the international dance competition Juste Debout Holland. He is also the winner of the famous Summer Dance Forever festival. He is a permanent dance maker at Theater a/d Rijn and a choreographer at the Introdans dance company, where he has already presented various special and innovative works. As the artistic leader of SoulCypher and Hiphophub, Chi is building a sustainable hip-hop (dance) community in his city of Arnhem with cultural productions and an annual hip-hop festival. At the same time, Ruben is also developing his work in the field of technological research within dance and, in collaboration with NDD & Innovation Lab, is exploring the future of dance through his “Transcendance” project in collaboration with Bob Sizoo.