Engineer Mind, Artist Heart
Choreographing a legacy of grit and integrity with Francisco Gella
In the high desert of northern New Mexico, legacy is often viewed through the lens of the ancient: the centuries-old adobe, the traditional acequia, the rhythmic thrum of an eighth-generation loom in Chimayó. But for Francisco Gella, artistic director of Zeitgeist Dance Theatre, legacy is a living, breathing architecture built in real-time through the bodies of his dancers.
Francisco is doing something much larger than choreographing steps. He is acting as a social architect, using the discipline of dance to build the fundamental infrastructure for human integrity and survival.
Recently, Francisco was commissioned by UNESCO to create a work celebrating Santa Fe’s designation as a Creative City. The result was Lineage, a masterpiece inspired by the Trujillo family of weavers. Initially, Francisco struggled to translate a stationary, slow craft into the high-velocity world of contemporary dance.
The breakthrough came when he realized that weaving and dance share the same DNA: rhythm, mathematics, pattern, and design.
To bring this to the stage, Francisco engineered what he calls a “living loom.” Using 15-foot canvases and 44 dancers, he created a visual representation of the warp and weft of human history. In one particularly complex section, the musical timing was so dense that traditional counting failed. His solution was a pivot from the head to the heart:
“Instead of counting, we listened,” Francisco tells ArtStorming Host Lili Pierrepont. “The dancers learned different strategies... they thought ‘us, we, we, we’ instead of ‘me, me, me.’ The work unified us.”
Francisco’s approach is a radical departure from the vicious legacy of traditional dance education—a world often synonymous with body shaming and emotional exhaustion. He is intentionally interrupting that cycle by prioritizing the human being over the human instrument.
Francisco is a vocal advocate for breaking body norms. He believes that if you take a ballet class, you are a ballet dancer, regardless of genetic ideals or skin color. During a dress rehearsal for Lineage, costumes were literally falling off the dancers. Instead of shaming the performers, Gella framed the moment as what he calls “redemption time.”
He taught them to turn that frustration into grit.
Francisco is candid with his young dancers about the fragility of the body. He reminds them that while they have the collagen and flexibility of youth now, the instrument has an expiration date. This awareness isn’t meant to cause fear, but to inspire a radical presence in the moment.
Before he found dance at age 19, Francisco was an engineering student. That analytical foundation still dictates his creative process. While many choreographers work purely from emotion, Francisco’s notebooks look like structural blueprints.
“I work like an engineer,” he says. “I diagram my movement patterns... I rely on my mathematics, I rely on my instinct.”
This balance of the engineer’s mind and the artist’s heart allows him to manage the complexity of a massive company while maintaining a deeply personal, empathetic connection to the work.
It is a reminder that one of the most creatives thing we can do is determine how we are remembered, and that requires both a plan and the courage to let it go.
Francisco’s career reached its most potent phase when he left the noise of Los Angeles for the stillness of Santa Fe. He found that the outside noise of trends and social media curation was a distraction from his inner voice.
“Santa Fe has made me quieter so that I can listen to this energy inside of me,” he says. “I trusted myself, and that’s what Santa Fe has done. It has made me quieter to be able to listen to this voice inside of me so that I could access that more when I create.”
By tapping into his own deeply personal truth—including his Filipino identity and the concept of Kaua (the love and warmth of his island people)—Francisco has discovered a universal language that resonates far beyond the stage.
As Zeitgeist Dance Theatre prepares for its upcoming season at The Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe this summer, the goal remains the same: to nurture whole human beings who can dance through adversity, hiccups, and life’s inevitable transitions.
Francisco’s work proves that art is not an extra or a luxury. It is the site where we practice being human. It is the bridge we build back when language fails, ensuring that our legacy is a living, breathing act of care. How are you choreographing your own legacy today?
Listen: Catch Francisco’s episode of ArtStorming.
Support: Every dollar you contribute to ArtBridge helps us keep these vital conversations alive! Donate Here.
Learn more about Zeitgeist Dance Theatre
Visit artbridgenm.org to learn more about our nonprofit and its other initiatives. All donations help us spread creativity through courageous conversation throughout our community and beyond. Subscribe now for just $8 or donate directly here.