Suzana Phialas, who works under the name Dancevatar, is a cross-media artist and performance maker from Cyprus whose work sits at the intersection of choreography, machine learning and digital sentience.,Rather than treating AI as a passive visual tool, she uses it as a strict somatic score, building feedback loops between the body and algorithmic systems.
Phialas was born in Cyprus and moved to New York City after high school to study dance and choreography. There she declared a double major in dance and fine arts and went on to complete BFA and MFA degrees, living in New York for 14 years before returning to Cyprus, her base.
In 2017, research for a planned performance piece about algorithms led her toward questions of privacy, decentralization and the crypto world. That path, shaped by the aftermath of the 2013 Cypriot banking crisis, marked the beginning of her involvement with Web3 and later NFTs. She discovered AI tools in early 2021 and began creating what she calls “Imaginary Meta-Performances”, synthetic dancers and performances she could situate and light as she imagined.
In 2023 she released BROKEN INTERIORS, a series of synthographs built from AI models she trained herself, and BRUTAL, a performative protest depicting young people adrift in an uncertain world.That year her work appeared in “Three Layers of Skin”, curated by Mariza Bargilly in Limassol, and “AISurrealism”, a show of 100 AI artists curated by Exquisite Workers at Superchief NFT Oculus Gallery in New York.,In 2024 her AI-driven performance piece AiNA, funded by the Cyprus Deputy Ministry of Culture, was selected to represent Cyprus at the European Contemporary Dance Festival.,Her performance archive is held in the permanent collection of the Cyprus State Gallery, and since 2023 she has been represented by Fellowship Trust in its DAILY curated releases program.
In 2025 she released somatic delusions, an AI video work imagining the digital body freed from biological constraints.That year she also took part in “Are you falling out of love with the Internet?”, curated by Anika Meier and presented by The Second-Guess as part of About Pop in Stuttgart, along with the group exhibition “Bodyscapes” at Load Gallery.,,,
