Originally from Wilmington, Delaware, Raphael Xavier is an award-winning artist. As a 2013 Pew Fellowship Grantee, 2016 Guggenheim Fellow and 2016 United States Artist Fellow, Xavier has been a professional breaker/dancer for the last 25 years, working in a variety of fields including music, photography and film. He is also a 2020 recipient of the Independence Public Media Foundation (IPMF) production grant.
His first short film as director and writer, Swerve·Eli, is now complete and on the festival circuit.
Xavier lives in Philadelphia and is a professor at Princeton University, where he teaches the History of Hip Hop Dance and Culture and Intro to Breaking courses.