Born in Legazpi, after finishing his musical studies at the Conservatorio Superior de Música in San Sebastian, Juan Kruz Díaz de Garaio Esnaola finished his education as a counter tenor at the Akademie voor Oude Muziek (Amsterdam). Meeting the choreographer Marcelo Evelin, who invited him to take part in the dance piece Muzot, made him decide to explore the potential of his whole body as an instrument and expressive tool. After working with P.C. Scholten, Emio Greco, Athur Rosenfeld and Lloyd Newson, among others, in 1995 he met Sasha Waltz, who invited him to join his ensemble. Allee der Kosmonauten was the first fruit of their long history of collaboration, in which he has figured as actor, musical director, composer, artistic adviser and rehearsal director. In his own work as a director and choreographer, Kruz shows particular interest in mingling his experience in both music and dance, exploring the relationship between the two disciplines, questioning the role of music within a theatrical show and the way it is included in it. A firm believer in genuine artistic collaborations, he develops his projects around them. He invited the artist Luc Dunberry (with whom he shares a large body of work), as well as Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet to co-direct his project d'avant. Other collaborators have included Joanna Dudley (My Dearest My Fairest, Colours May Fade With Friction...), Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin (4 Elementen – 4 Jahreszeiten, from which ARTE y Harmonia Mundi made a dvd), Les Monts du Reuil (direction and set for the opera by Duny-Laruette-Anseaume Le docteur Sangrado, premiered at the Opéra de Reims, France, in January 2014), loscorderos.sc, MOPA (espérame despierto) and Stephanie Thiersch. His most recent work includes casi, for Danza Contemporánea de Cuba and Romances, commissioned for the Bienal de Flamenco de Sevilla 2012, for which he won the Giraldillo prize for best direction.
He teaches and runs workshops and master classes regularly all over the world.