BIOGRAPHY

Alvin Collantes (He/They) is a Queer Filipino performance artist based in Berlin, Germany. Combining contemporary dance, decolonial practices, the art of drag, and queer dance floor history, their artistic practice centres around migration, diasporic struggles of loss and belonging and building queer-centred worlds. Their artistic research delves into queerness as an artistic practice of crafting wholeness, interweaving community care work and sustainability. Alvin is a 2024 Soho House Fellowship member through the Creative Futures Collective and a participant of Performance Ecologies Residency hosted by Goethe-Institute Philippines under the curation of Eisa Jocson and Franchesca Casuay. Alvin often works with prominent choreographers and performance artists such as Kiani Del Valle of KDV Perofromance Group, Alvin Tolentino of Company Erasga Vancouver and Ming Poon of Asian Performing Arts Lab Berlin.

Alvin acknowledges that their artistic journey was shaped on the traditional lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabeg, the Haudenosaunee, and the Huron-Wendat peoples.

As a drag performer, Alvin embodies "Bibingka," a character deeply rooted in their Filipino heritage and a bridge between their cultural past and the Western landscapes they now inhabits. Through Bibingka, Alvin channels the echoes of a nation shaped by centuries of colonization and its diasporic imprints. Bibingka is a love letter to her heritage, weaving a legacy of dance, drag, and cultural memory into a powerful celebration of identity and queer possibilities.

You can see her live her life in Horse Meat Disco, Lunchbox Candy, Dissident, BRENN, and Pyramid Party, as well as festivals like WHOLE Queer United Festival, Garbicz, and Bucht Der Träumer. Bibingka is a member of Queens Against Borders, uplifting refugee and migrant drag artists, and Slaysians, an all-Asian drag collective reclaiming space in the global scene.

As a core member of the KDV Dance Ensemble, Alvin Collantes moves within the deeply evocative worlds crafted by Kiani Del Valle, performing in works such as Cortex (2024) at Sonar Festival Barcelona, CTM Festival, Performance Space New York and Rewire Festival, La Tierra Quemada (2022), Fuego en el campo (2024), Las Casas Invisibles (2020) and Te Veo (2025) at Y3 Adidas Paris Fashion Week.

Alvin has also danced for BlackPearl (House of St Laurent), debuting Between Us at BritneyX Festival in Cologne, and performed under the visionary guidance of fashion icon Michèle Lamy in the premiere of Matt Lambert’s film Infinite 2 at the Julia Stoschek Collection, choreographed by Steven Hohn.

Currently, Alvin and Jun Suzuki are engaged in an intimate artistic exploration through FLUIDS, a piece inspired by their parallel childhoods in Japan and the Philippines. Together, they weave a tapestry of stories left behind, navigating emotional landscapes of grief, identity, belonging, and acceptance. This work has been performed at the APAL Residency, Magical Hackerism: Elasticity of Resilience at SAVVY Contemporary, and the House of Beautiful Business, pushing the boundaries of how personal and cultural histories are felt and shared through movement and sound.

As a dance educator, Alvin was awarded in 2020 by the Canadian Arts Council and Ontario Arts Council with the “Skills and Career Development Grant for People of Colour Scholarship” to become the first Certified Gaga Teacher from Toronto. Alvin has taught workshops in institutions around the globe such as The University of Western Ontario (Canada), Scottish Dance Theatre (Scotland) and The Universität der Künste Berlin (Germany).

Alvin Collantes is the creator of Dose of Pleasure, a transformative dancefloor activation practice that promotes body liberation, community empowerment, and social sustainability. Featured in media outlets such as ARTE TV and Vice Germany, this practice transcends traditional boundaries, fostering spaces of diversity, inclusion, and collective care. Alvin has shared Dose of Pleasure at festivals like WHOLE United Queer Festival, Amsterdam Dance Event, Corona Culture Exhibition, Bucht Der Traumer Festival and Grabicz Festival.

As a Key Note Speaker, their work “Exit Through The Body” also extends into corporate spaces and marketing summits such as Bock Auf Morgen!, House of Beautiful Business and NEXT Conference, exploring the potentiality of sharing dance floor spaces to cultivate belonging, empowerment, and care, while championing dance as a powerful tool for building social sustainability and celebrating diversity.