Giuliana Velez is a Houston-based movement artist, choreographer, and DJ whose interdisciplinary practice bridges dance, music, and community-centered storytelling. A proud Houston native, she draws inspiration from the city’s vibrant cultural mosaic and her own layered identity as a Latina and African American woman. Her work is deeply rooted in cultural preservation, emotional complexity, and experimentation, using movement and sound as vehicles for resistance, joy, and transformation. Giuliana was recently an artist in residence at Project Row Houses, where she developed community-engaged projects that honored underrepresented communities and challenged traditional norms, like the experience of being a woman.

Giuliana holds a BFA in Dance from the University of Texas at Austin, where she received intensive training in contemporary, modern, ballet, and improvisation-based practices. Alongside university learning, Giuliana has been a member of the Houston and Austin street dance community, and embraced street and social dance forms—including hip-hop, house, Latin styles, and Black American vernacular traditions—which became foundational to her movement language. This blended training positioned her as a versatile performer and choreographer able to navigate both concert stages and community-rooted dance spaces with fluency. Her academic and studio research sparked an enduring inquiry: how can street and concert dance worlds exist in authentic conversation rather than in hierarchy? This question continues to guide her evolving practice.

Her performance work spans stage, film, and interdisciplinary collaborations. Giuliana has presented original choreography at the Cohen New Works Festival (2025) and Mind the Gap (2025), where her pieces integrated improvisation, narrative, and multimedia design to explore themes of identity, memory, and cultural continuity. Her projects often emerge through collective making processes, inviting dancers, musicians, visual artists, and community members into shared authorship. This collaborative ethos reflects her belief that dance is not only performance but also dialogue—a space where stories can be exchanged, reframed, and reclaimed.

Parallel to her dance career, Giuliana (DJ Giulz) is a rising DJ whose rhythm-driven sound mirrors the versatility and intentionality of her movement work. Introduced to a wide spectrum of music at a young age and shaped by her multi-style dance training, she developed an intuitive musical ear long before her first DJ set. Dance taught her how to read a room, anticipate shifts in energy, and sculpt an emotional arc—skills she now brings directly into her DJ practice. Since stepping behind the decks in 2023, she has cultivated a multi-genre approach that moves fluidly through pop, oldies, house, hip-hop, Latin rhythms, and genre-blending transitions that reflect her hybrid artistic identity. On any dance floor, her goal remains consistent: to spark joy, amplify culture, and invite people to move freely.

Giuliana’s body of work reflects a growing list of collaborations with dancers, filmmakers, and community organizations across Houston and Austin. Her completed residency at Project Row Houses strengthened her commitment to building bridges between artistic practice and community engagement, allowing her to create performances and soundscapes that honor the neighborhoods and cultural histories that shaped her. Her technical skills span choreography, improvisational design, dance-film production, DJ mixing and curation, movement direction, and dance education—each contributing to a holistic, interdisciplinary career.