Ballet Hispánico Joins Four World-Renowned Dance Companies for the Two-Day Hudson River Dance Festival

Ballet Hispánico Joins Four World-Renowned Dance Companies for the Two-Day
Hudson River Dance Festival
June 6 & 7, 2019 at 7pm

New York, NY – Ballet Hispánico, America’s leading Latino dance organization, brings its bold and eclectic brand of contemporary dance as one of the companies in the Hudson River Dance Festival on Pier 63 Lawn Bowl at W. 23rd Street, NYC. The festival is FREE and details are available at
https://hudsonriverpark.org/events/hudson-river-dance-festival-2019 

Hudson River Park and The Joyce Theater are proud to bring you the fifth annual Hudson River Dance Festival, bringing five of today’s most exciting companies together for two spectacular shows. Presented by SHS Foundation, this year’s festival celebrates the vibrant and diverse voices and styles our city has to offer, set against the backdrop of the Hudson River sunset. Free for all!

2019 Performers:
Dormeshia: Rhythm Migration… – Learn More
Taylor 2: Aureole – Learn More
doug elkins choreography, etc.: O, Round Desire – Learn More
Ballet Hispánico: Sombrerísimo – Learn More
Camille A. Brown & Dancers: New Second Line – Learn More

The women of the Ballet Hispánico Company exercise their athleticism and power in Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Sombrerísimo. The work is an athletic tour de force originally created for six men full of complex partnering, Latin sizzle, and a joyous celebration of self.  Inspired by the surrealist world of Belgian painter René Magritte, famous for his paintings of men in bowler hats,Sombrerísimo references the iconic sombreros (hats) found throughout the world that help to represent culture. 

ANNABELLE LOPEZ OCHOA has been choreographing since 2003 following a twelve-year dance career in various contemporary dance companies throughout Europe. She has created works on fifty companies worldwide including Ballet Hispánico, Atlanta Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Compania Nacional de Danza, Dutch National Ballet, Finnish National Ballet, Royal Ballet of Flanders, Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, Göteborg Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, BJM-Danse Montréal, New York City Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, Tulsa Ballet, San Francisco Ballet and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, to name a few. In 2012, her first full length work, A Streetcar Named Desire, originally created for Scottish Ballet, received the Critics’ Circle National Dance Award for “Best Classical Choreography” and was nominated for the prestigious Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production the following year. 

ABOUT BALLET HISPÁNICO
Ballet Hispánico, America’s leading Latino dance organization in the United States, has been bringing individuals and communities together to celebrate and explore Latino cultures through dance for nearly 50 years. Whether dancing on stage, in school, or in the street, Ballet Hispánico creates a space where few institutions are breaking ground.

The organization’s founder, National Medal of Arts recipient Tina Ramirez, sought to give voice to the Hispanic experience and break through stereotypes. Today, Ballet Hispánico is led by Eduardo Vilaro, an acclaimed choreographer and former member of the Company, whose vision of social equity, cultural identity and quality arts education for all drives its programs.

Ballet Hispánico, a role model in and for the Latino community, is inspiring creativity and social awareness in our neighborhoods and across the country by providing access to arts education.

Eduardo Vilaro joined Ballet Hispánico as Artistic Director in August 2009, becoming only the second person to head the company since it was founded in 1970. In 2015, Mr. Vilaro took on the additional role of Chief Executive Officer of Ballet Hispánico. He has been part of the Ballet Hispánico family since 1985 as a dancer and educator, after which he began a ten-year record of achievement as founder and Artistic Director of Luna Negra Dance Theater in Chicago. Mr. Vilaro has infused Ballet Hispánico’s legacy with a bold and eclectic brand of contemporary dance that reflects America’s changing cultural landscape. Born in Cuba and raised in New York from the age of six, he is a frequent speaker on the merits of cultural diversity and dance education. 

Mr. Vilaro’s own choreography is devoted to capturing the spiritual, sensual and historical essence of Latino cultures. He created over 20 ballets for Luna Negra and has received commissions from the Ravinia Festival, the Chicago Sinfonietta, the Grant Park Festival, the Lexington Ballet and the Chicago Symphony. In 2001, he was a recipient of a Ruth Page Award for choreography, and in 2003, he was honored for his choreographic work at Panama’s II International Festival of Ballet. Mr. Vilaro was also inducted into the Bronx Walk of Fame in 2016 and was awarded HOMBRE Magazine’s 2017 Arts & Culture Trailblazer of the Year.

ABOUT THE JOYCE THEATER
The Joyce Theater Foundation (“The Joyce,” Executive Director, Linda Shelton), a non-profit organization, has proudly served the dance community for over three decades. Under the direction of founders Cora Cahan and Eliot Feld, Ballet Tech Foundation acquired and The Joyce renovated the Elgin Theater in Chelsea. Opening as The Joyce Theater in 1982, it was named in honor of Joyce Mertz, beloved daughter of LuEsther T. Mertz. It was LuEsther’s clear, undaunted vision and abundant generosity that made it imaginable and ultimately possible to build the theater. Ownership was secured by The Joyce in 2015. The theater is one of the only theaters built by dancers for dance and has provided an intimate and elegant home for over 400 U.S.-based and international companies. The Joyce has also expanded its reach beyond its Chelsea home through off-site presentations at venues ranging in scope from Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater, to Brooklyn’s Invisible Dog Art Center, and to outdoor programming in spaces such as Hudson River Park. To further support the creation of new work, The Joyce maintains longstanding commissioning and residency programs. Local students and teachers (K-12th grade) benefit from its school program, and family and adult audiences get closer to dance with access to artists. The Joyce’s annual season of about 48 weeks of dance now includes over 340 performances for audiences in excess of 150,000.