After having graduated at the UA with a thesis on the Brecht reception in Flanders, Guy Cools became involved with the new developments in dance in Flanders from the 1980s, initially as a dance critic and from 1990 onwards as theatre and dance director of Arts Centre Vooruit in Gent. As vice-president of the Dance Council he contributed to the cultural policy towards dance of the Flemish Community. He curated dance events in Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Venice and Montréal. He is still working as an artistic consultant for amongst others Place des Arts-Montréal. He left Vooruit to dedicate himself fulltime to production dramaturgy with amongst others Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (Toneelhuis) Koen Augustijnen, Lisi Esteras (Les Ballets C. de la B.), Anabel Schellekens (B), Sara Wookey (Amsterdam-LA), Lia Haraki (Cyprus), Danièle Desnoyers (Montréal), Akram Khan (London), and to return to his old passions of teaching, writing, giving workshops, lecturing and publishing in Belgium, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Greece. Since 2004, he lives in Montréal-Canada.
The doctoral research in the arts of Guy Cools has two main axis. First, it wants to describe a different way to approach the praxis-theory dichotomy. Using his own work as a dance dramaturg as a starting point, he indicates how theoretical reflection is not only used as an analytical reference frame to look from outside at the work of art, but can also be a supporting tool within the creative process to stimulate, nourish and guide it.Secondly, it investigates the parallells and influences in the approach towards and the reflection on the body within contemporary dance and other fields of thinking, somatic studies in particular.