DAVID J AMADO
BIOGRAPHY
David J. Amado is a Jamaican-American Filmmaker-Choreographer, a Portuguese Ministry of Culture Grant Recipient, and a graduate of Columbia University in the City of New York (B.A. in Music).
His films “Velveteen” and “True Colors” have been presented in film festivals such as the Berlin Lift-Off Festial, Afropolitan (Brussels) and Mostra Ousmane Sembene de Cinema (Brazil). David´s work has also been featured in magazines such as Vogue Portugal, The Vanilla Issue (Austraila), Selin Magazine (Holland) and PARQMag (Portugal) to name a few. Most recently, both “True Colors” and “Velveteen” were broadcast on the television station RTPÁfrica, which brought the films directly into the homes of people in Portugal, Angola, Mozambique, Guiné-Bissau, São Tome and Cape Verde. Currently, David is in the process of developing his first feature length film through a screenwriting residency with Netflix Portugal and Academia Portuguesa de Cinema.
As a choreographer, his mission is to use ballet to tell the stories of black queer people. As a filmmaker, David is deeply influenced by the structure of the old 1970s and 1980s musical films, the aesthetics of 1990s American hip hop culture, as well as the writing of queer Black pioneers like James Baldwin. His work lies at the intersection of fine art, intellectual queer, and ghetto aesthetics. With a multicultural heritage and a career spanning three continents, David J. Amado approaches choreography, film and fashi0n with a nuanced, inclusive mindset where audiences are given the opportunity to expand their paradigm as it relates to the versatility of the Black body, as well as what is ballet.
HIGHLIGHTS
Portuguese Ministry of Culture creative grant recipient.
Facilitated workshops at Escola Superior de Dança and Forum Dança, the two leading dance colleges in Portugal.
Works presented in Vogue Portugal, Lisbon Fashion Week, PARQMag (Portugal) and Selin Magazine (Netherlands).
Films presented in Berlin Lift-Off Festival, Afropolitan (Belgium), Festival Política (Portugal), Festival Genders & Performances (Portugal), and Mostra Ousmane Sembene de Cinema (Brasil).
Member of The Classical Dance Alliance, Inc. and of The International Dance Counsel of UNESCO. Certified in the first 3 years of the Vaganova Classical Dance syllabus. (USA/ Russia)
Teacher Training workshops with The National Dance Institute-NDI in NYC (USA), Director Jacques D’Amboise.