Gabriela Petrov was raised in Tkaronto/Toronto by Czech immigrant parents, and now lives and works in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, on the unceded Indigenous lands of the Kanien'kehá:ka Nation. For eight years, Gabi has taught performance practices to artists independently and at various institutions including McGill University, and Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado where she received her MFA in Contemporary Performance. She is currently Part-Time Faculty in the Department of Theatre at Concordia University. For over twelve years, Gabi has trained in and practiced the Six Viewpoints approach to performance under the guidance of many teachers including Leslie Baker, Wendell Beavers, Deborah Black and Anne Bogart.  Gabi is proud to honour the lineage of the Viewpoints as they were originated by Mary Overlie. Other practices she draws from are Contemplative Dance Practice which she studied under Barbara Dilley, and Body-Mind Centering® which she continues to study under various teachers including Erika Berland, Mariko Tanabe and Amy Matthews. Gabi is co-founder of a working group of international artist/scholars to explore how the Viewpoints approach can engage with the value of inclusivity. Gabi teaches the Viewpoints to undergraduates at Concordia, and has also partnered with organizations like Playwrights' Workshop Montréal and the Quebec Drama Federation to offer inclusive Viewpoints training to artists in the Montréal community.

 

In her artistic work, Gabi uses improvisational movement to explore how she and others may experience the transformative spaces between and within performance and everyday life. In 2018, Gabi co-founded the Habitat Practice Group with Prof. Myrna Wyatt Selkirk and interdisciplinary artist, Carina Rose. Using tools from their various fields of expertise including theatre, dance, architecture, and somatics, the group is pursuing a long-form investigation of movement and sound as they exist within and surrounding improvisational structures. With funding from the Québec government, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Concordia Part-time Faculty Association, Gabi is deepening her training and practice in Body-Mind Centering® and applying her findings towards her teaching practice and the development of new artistic works.