Gonzalo Preciado Azanza

Gonzalo Preciado Azanza is a research fellow at the Department of Art History in the University of Zaragoza (Spain), where he is writing his PhD thesis focusing on Spanishness in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century ballet productions. He has a special interest in the Baltic region. He is a former dancer with the Latvian National Ballet. He received his BA in Art (Dance) from Middlesex University London, his MA in Cultural Management from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya-Universitat de Girona, and his MA in Advanced Studies in Art History from the University of Zaragoza. He completed his artistic studies at the English National Ballet School. He has been a visiting researcher at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Université Paris 8, University of Latvia, and the Institute of History (Spanish National Research Council, Madrid). He is a member of the research group Observatorio Aragonés de Arte en la Esfera Pública and of the RDI project Cuerpo danzante: archivos, imaginarios y transculturalidades en la danza entre el Romanticismo y la Modernidad (MCI/AEI/FEDER-UE, PID2021-122286NB-I00). His research interests include the relationship between identity and dance, as well as choreographic practices in the digital age, which has resulted in journal articles, book chapters, and international congresses. His first book, Breve historia de la jota aragonesa en el ballet (Rolde, 2023), explores the influence of the jota on the history of ballet from Romanticism to the present. This northern Spanish dance became a cross-cultural choreographic language in Paris, London, Copenhagen, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Riga, and New York.