Ea Torrado (1985, Quezon City) is a queer-identifying, La Union-based Filipina contemporary choreographer, performing artist and educator. Her praxis ​​is based on embodied experimentations: playing with form, creating new hybrids, letting each work become what it wants to be, without pushing it into a predefined box. She performed soloist and principal roles with Ballet Manila and Ballet Philippines, before forming her own group in 2014, Daloy Dance Company. Her body of work has garnered awards such as the Alvin Erasga Tolentino Koreograpiya Award, the Remedios De Oteyza Award for Choreography and the Asian Cultural Council Grant.
She also explores themes of identity, societal culture, eroticism, spirituality, healing and environmental care through various intersecting mediums such as dance theatre, performance rituals, community gatherings, experimental films, and more.
Her work
Among her pieces are 'Filipinas' and 'Sisa', exhibited at The Lopez Museum and Library as part of “Complicated” (2014), 'Unearthing', featured at the Setouchi Triennale and Asian Performing Arts Market in Japan (2016), 'Sisa', presented at the Hudyat Exhibit at FEU Gallery (2016), 'Encounters', presented at UP College of Arts and Letters and UP Vargas Museum for the UP LAWAS Art Project (2018), and 'Transcendance - A Daloy Movement', an immersive performance at KONDWI gallery for 10 Days of Art and Fringe Manila Festival (2020).
Recent exhibitions include 'Babae, Sino Ka' group exhibit at Nudefloor (2022), 'Bari-bari' [We're only passing through, we mean no harm] presented at Museum Biberach in Germany (2022), and 'Catwoman' featured in the exhibits “The Calendar” and “Eros and The Grotesque” (2024).
​
Since 2020, Torrado has expanded her repertoire to include a series of movement and meditation gatherings that delve into the concept of the ‘divine feminine’. These gatherings include “Ritwal", “When She Comes - Emergence of the Goddess Within Through Dance and Song”, "Ligaya - A Workshop on Gaze and Orgasms”, "Awakening the Inner Dyosa”, and “Dancing Dyosa Circle”. Additionally, she is also a tarot reader, energy healer, and mindfulness meditation facilitator — qualities of intuition, healing, and care that are deeply ingrained in her practice, reflecting divine feminine qualities. Furthermore, she founded and continues to share Daloy Movement as a practice, where she guides others through embodiment exercises that intertwine intuitive and improvisational movement practices for self-understanding, discovery, and deeper connection with others and with nature.
​
'Dysmorphilia' (2015) at PETA Theatre, byb Ea Torrado and Daloy Dance Company
'ItikLandia' at Cultural Center of the Philippines 2024, by Ea Torrado and Daloy Dance Company
'ItikLandia' 2023 by Ea Torrado
'Moonlight' (2019) by Ea Torrado and Daloy Dance Company
Torrado is the founder and artistic director of Daloy Dance Company, a Manila-based dance theatre group. For her, Daloy is not just a platform for her works; it's a fluid space where rich, messy, promiscuous, generative, and hard-to-classify dances can come to life.
Her works have been showcased by WIFI Body Dance Festival, Ballet Philippines’ Neo-Filipino, Contemporary Dance Map, The Lopez Museum, KARNABAL Festival, Imaginarium Multi Arts Festival of the Absurd, Erehwon Arts Center, FRINGE Manila Arts Festival, Malasimbo Lights and Dance Festival, Pasinaya Arts Festival, and the International Dance Day Festival at Aliw Theatre, UP Center for Women and Gender Studies and Paghilom Festival. Internationally, she has graced stages at the Ho Chi Minh International Dance Festival, Low Fat Art Fest Thailand, Goyang International Dance Festival, Lively Arts Performing Arts College in Pennsylvania, Cape Fear Community College for the Performing Arts in North Carolina, USA, SensUnique Gallery in Ghent, Belgium for the Sorry Not Sorry Festival. She has participated in Radical Contact, Tanzplatform, Tokyo Performing Arts Meeting, Asia Pacific Improv Festival, M1 Contact Festival in Singapore, and Southeast Asia Choreolab in Malaysia. Ea was the Philippine delegate for the Japan Foundation Manila to the Tokyo Performing Arts Meeting 2016 (Yokohama) and Goethe Institute Manila to Tanzplatform 2016 (Frankfurt).
​
Her piece Flight won 1st Place at the Philippine Dance Cup (2018), and Evaporation won 3rd Place at the Philippine Dance Cup (2016). Her work has been supported by The National Commission for Culture and the Arts, Japan Foundation Manila, Goethe Institut Manila, Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, and more.
​
Recent international tours she has performed and choreographed in include the Seoul Performing Arts Festival (2023) and the Taiwan-Philippines Island Hopping Collaborative (2023).
​
'Unearthing' Solo 2023 by Ea Torrado, performed by Deborah Lemuel
'Tryst' by Ea Torrado, in photo, CJ Aquino as dance artist
Residencies, Talks, Films
She has also recently attended workshops such as the Puon Institut Residency (2023), Doku Theatre Workshop (2024), and British School Manila Artist Residency (2022 and 2023). Her most recent new works choreographed and directed include Tryst at KONDWI Gallery (2024), Elementos at Ayala Gardens (2023), Itiklandia at Cultural Center of the Philippines (2024), and We’re Humans at Samsung Performing Arts Theatre (2024).
Her films include The Gray Area, Wallflower, Embracing, Sisa, and Bari-bari, among others. Short Films recently directed by Ea include Bari-bari at Company Christoph Winkler, supported by Goethe Institut; Pag-aatang at The Future is Ritual, supported by Ontario Council for the Arts; and Pamamaalam, supported by Canada Council for the Arts. Ea has delivered talks at the Bangkok International Performing Arts Festival, TEDx ADMU, and the British School Manila.
Daloy Dance Company (2014- present) Directed by Ea Torrado, "Wailing Women' (2017) Ea Torrado at Judson Church , Movement Research, New York City
To define the big elusive things such as success, beauty, power, love on our own terms. And to live aligned with our own definition.
To be soft-hearted and strong-spined as we change definitions and identities too.
To be brave in healing though living, through relating (better) with the people and communities that matter to us.
To feel so full that we contribute to the world through our gifts from a place of wholeness. We give our best, not what's left of us.
To be able to dance, literally and figuratively. Not so we can be called “good dancers”, but so we can feel the power and aliveness of our own flesh, bones, veins and blood and breath. So we can get better at dancing with Life itself. Celebrating what is present. And seducing the co-creative, collaborative, abundant futures we desire.
'Brown Madonna' 2018 by Ea Torrado
Interest in the Healing Arts
As a Tarot Reader, Energy Healer and Mindfulness Meditation Coach -- Ea's journey in the healing arts began in 2015 with Reiki certification at Whitespace Wellness Yoga. As her passion deepened, she completed 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training the following year and achieved Reiki Master Level 3 in 2020, under the guidance of Zelimir Strugar in the lineage of Sensei Mikao Usui. Alongside her healing studies, Ea delved into various movement forms like Contact Improvisation, Physical Theatre, Viewpoints Method, and Dance Meditation Techniques during her travels abroad.
Let's connect on Instagram
As featured on
