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Ballet Hispánico returns to the Vail Dance Festival, Aug. 8-9

by Michelle Tabnick
July 31, 2019
Vail Valley Foundation
90 Benchmark Road Suite 300 Avon, CO 81620

Featured Dance Company:

Ballet Hispanico
Ballet Hispanico (office)
167 West 89th Street
New York, NY 10024
212-362-6710
www.ballethispanico.org

Ballet Hispánico, the nation's premier Latino dance organization, brings its bold and eclectic brand of contemporary dance to the Vail Dance Festival for the second year in a row on August 9-10, 2019.
 
Following its thrilling Festival debut in 2018, Ballet Hispánico returns to close out this year's Vail Dance Festival with a new performance program. Prior to the closing night performance and celebrations, Ballet Hispánico will host a sneak peek of their dances in Dancing in the Streets. In the evening, after their closing night performance, audience members are invited on-stage for a fiesta.
 
Master Class: Ballet with Ballet Hispánico, August 9, 2019 at 9am at the Vail Mountain School, $35 for class participation
Each summer the Vail Dance Festival hosts a Master Class Series giving dance students from the Vail Valley and surrounding areas the opportunity to learn and gain invaluable dance experience from world-class dancers and instructors. With purchase of ticket, one observer is allowed to attend.
vaildance.org/event/master-class-ballet-with-ballet-hispanico-2019
 
Dancing in the Streets: Ballet Hispánico, August 10, 2019 at noon, at the cross streets of Bridge and Gore in Vail Village.
Audiences are invited to a preview of Ballet Hispánico's work before the Company closes the Vail Dance Festival in the evening. The dancers will perform excerpts of repertory and audience members can learn some of the choreography. The performance is free and open to the public.
 
Ballet Hispánico, August 10, 2019 at 7:30pm, at the Gerard R. Ford Amphitheater.
The 2019 Vail Dance Festival will conclude with repertory from Ballet Hispánico followed by a closing night fiesta where performers and audience members can gather to celebrate the 2019 Festival.
 
In El Viaje, Edwaard Liang evokes emotion through moving sound and lush movement to exemplify how many individuals feel when one leaves one's homeland or country of birth to seek a new life, including moments of remembering, sharing, and letting go. He particularly focuses on the Chinese mass emigration from the nineteenth century to 1949 and the Chinese-Cuban diaspora to explore identity and the ghosts of a former life.
 
Inspired by the surrealist world of Belgian painter René Magritte, famous for his paintings of men in bowler hats, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's Sombrerísimo references the iconic sombreros (hats) found throughout the world that help to represent culture. Originally choreographed for an all-male cast, Sombrerísimo has evolved into a work that can also be performed by an all-female or mixed-gender cast. 
 
Club Havana is Latin Dancing at its best. The intoxicating rhythms of the conga, rumba, mambo, and cha cha are brought to life by choreographer Pedro Ruiz, himself a native of Cuba, as he imagined his very own "Club Havana."
 
For tickets and more information, visit www.vaildance.org.
 
MetLife Foundation is the Official Tour Sponsor of Ballet Hispánico.
 
Major funding for Ballet Hispánico programming is provided by The Arnhold Foundation, The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, The Ford Foundation, the Howard Gilman Foundation, The Jerome L. Greene Foundation, The Francis Lear Foundation, The SHS Foundation, and The Shubert Foundation.
 
Programming is also made possible by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and by the National Endowment for the Arts.
 
About Ballet Hispánico
Ballet Hispánico, America's leading Latino dance organization, 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 (Artistic Director & CEO) 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 inducted into the Bronx Walk of Fame in 2016 and was awarded HOMBRE Magazine's 2017 Arts & Culture Trailblazer of the Year. In 2019, Mr. Vilaro was the recipient of the West Side Spirit's WESTY Award, was honored by WNET for his contributions to the arts, and most recently, was the recipient of the James W. Dodge Foreign Language Advocate Award. 
 
About the Vail Dance Festival
The outdoor splendor of the Colorado Rocky Mountains is the backdrop each summer as the unique mountain town of Vail plays host to a collection of the world's finest dancers. Under the artistic direction of Damian Woetzel, the Vail Dance Festival, now in its 31st year, has become renowned for its artistic excellence, unique programming, commissioned works, and one-of-a-kind artistic collaborations. More than twenty thousand people from around the world descend each summer on Vail, a vibrant cultural destination, for the Festival's two-week residency. The Festival's spirited atmosphere transforms the village into a culturally-rich environment that is inviting to dance aficionados and newcomers alike. In addition to regular performances, the Festival features robust community programming and education events, drawing on its roster of visiting artists, in addition to year-round personnel who focus on arts education in the Vail Valley. In the fall of 2016, the Vail Dance Festival presented for the first time a season outside of its Colorado-base, with a series of acclaimed performances at New York City Center entitled Vail Dance Festival: ReMix NYC. The Vail Dance Festival is a project of the Vail Valley Foundation, which since 1981 has fulfilled its mission to enhance and sustain the quality of life in the Vail Valley by providing leadership in arts, education, and athletics. The Vail Valley Foundation's work is made possible by generous individuals and support from Cornerstone Partners GMC, EverBank, and Vail Resorts. For more information, visit www.vaildance.org.
 
About the Vail Valley Foundation
The Vail Valley Foundation is a nonprofit with the mission to enhance and sustain the quality of life in the Vail Valley by providing leadership in arts, education and athletics. The organization is known for its work in education with YouthPower365, which provides programming to more than 4,200 local children with early childhood, K-12, and scholarship programs. The Vail Valley Foundation also provides the Vail Valley with several of its most treasured annual events, such as the GoPro Mountain Games, the EverBank America's Winter Opening, the Birds of Prey FIS World Cup races, the Colorado Classic cycling race, the Vail Dance Festival and the Whistle Pig Vail concert series. The Vail Valley Foundation was the organizing body for the Alpine World Ski Championships in Vail and Beaver Creek in 1989, 1999, and 2015. It also manages and operates the Vilar Performing Arts Center in Beaver Creek Village and the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater in Vail, providing more than 100 concert, Broadway, dance, and family events per year. 
 
Vail Valley Foundation activities and events are made possible by cornerstone sponsors GMC, EverBank, and Vail Resorts. Visit www.vvf.org to learn more. 
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