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A Partnership Celebrating Culture and Dance <b>by Michelle Adam </b>

Arts and Media June 2018 PREMIUM
When Eduardo Vilaro came here from Cuba at six years old, dance was his saving grace. It helped him connect with his culture and feel at home in a new land, and later opened doors for him in higher education. Dance also gave him a chance to do what he loves to do: share Latino culture with not only audiences internationally, but students of all ages who, through dance, discover a part of themselves and their culture that they may otherwise not do.

Today, as artistic director of our nation’s premier Latino dance organization, Ballet Hispánico, Vilaro directs and oversees international performances; its New York City dance school; discussion panels on culture and the arts; and a Community Arts Partnership Program. And most recently, Vilaro and Ballet Hispánico have partnered up with California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA), to create the first-of-its-kind Community Arts Partnership LA that will take dance and culture to another level.

“After 50 years in existence, we want to reach our larger community throughout the nation, and we are starting with the West Coast,” said Vilaro, who has already been at Cal State LA four times this year. “This is the first time we are working with one university in a continuous way.”

How It All Began

Fifty years ago, National Medal of Arts recipient Tina Ramirez established Ballet Hispánico in New York City with a passion to give voice to the Hispanic experience and to break through stereotypes.  Since then, her organization has performed internationally with dancers and choreographers of the highest caliber and diversity, and has run a successful dance school with 700 students a year on scholarships.  In addition, Ballet Hispánico has hosted many discussions and panels related to culture and the arts, and has provided workshops and community outreach programs throughout the country that have touched many more students’ lives than anyone could imagine.

“We are giving access to students to learn about themselves and their culture more deeply than the common stereotypes, which most recently have been heightened with the dialogue going on in the world,” said Vilaro, who began with Ballet Hispánico in 1985 and has since learned the importance of teaching culture and pride through dance. “We are seeing students fall in love with dance. It gives them an incredible sense of confidence, pride, direction and ability to stick with something they say they are going to stick with.”

Weaving Dance And Culture

Thanks to Ballet Hispánico, students of all ages are discovering dance and their culture with a dance troupe of the highest quality. During this year alone, the organization’s dancers are performing pieces that tell the stories of:

• the African and Latino diasporas of the Caribbean

• Spain’s gypsy influences, including Flamenco dance

• Mexico’s Frida Kahlo and folkloric symbols

• the culture of the Dominican Republic

• Cuban dance stemming from Haitian origins

• movement inspired by the Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca

When the organization’s dancers perform throughout the world, they also provide workshops and community outreach, and have invited students of local areas to practice and perform with the troupe. Just this past March, Vilaro worked with students from the Los Angeles School for the Performing Arts High School who then performed with the company.

“When does a student get that kind of opportunity?” said Vilaro. “They loved it! We did an En Familia Program with dance and also talked to the audience about how dance and culture weave together. The whole audience was dancing in the end!”

Partnering With Cal State LA

“We had hundreds of families attend and the response has been overwhelmingly positive,” said Janet Schellhase Dial, vice president for University Advancement and executive director of the Cal State LA Foundation at Cal State University, Los Angeles.

Opportunities like this one will now become more commonplace for students of all ages in the Los Angeles area because of the new three-year partnership between Ballet Hispánico and Cal State LA. As part of this collaboration, Ballet Hispánico will come out to CSU Los Angeles once a year for several weeks to perform, and will offer workshops while partnering with different departments at the University.

At the time of our interview, Vilaro had just returned from the University, where he had offered a lecture on dance, gender and sexuality for a creative writing class. In addition, the dancers performed and provided workshops for students in dance, and through Cal State LA they did workshops at the local YMCA.

“We are hoping that this partnership continues to grow the appreciation for Latin American culture and heritage through dance and creative writing,” Dial said. “With the recent partnership with the Y we have also had an opportunity to reach out to children and their families who would not otherwise have an opportunity to see this world-renowned dance company and learn about the culture and history of Latin America.” 

Beyond the two weeks during which time Ballet Hispánico will visit the University, Vilaro will work continuously with students there, especially with those doing service credits with their local high school and middle schools. The dance company plans to train these college students to work with dance and culture inside their public schools and within the community.

What's Next?

The goal, in the end, is to celebrate Latino culture and the arts beyond the confines of Ballet Hispánico’s New York City area, and to create lasting partnerships that model empowerment and education through dance in communities throughout the United States.

“We have a lot of work to do,” said Vilaro. “Culture is not static and is ever changing. We are not one Latino culture, but many cultures with differences. And so what’s great is students learning that they can use movement to express that and can discover what is unknown inside their culture and that of others.”

As a school where Latinos make up more than half of the population, Cal State LA seems as good a place as any for Ballet Hispánico to inspire culture and dance at the university level. Yet, this is just the beginning. Vilaro has his sights on creating similar partnerships in Houston, Miami and other areas with high populations of Latinos, so that Tina Ramirez’s original vision of celebrating culture and breaking down stereotypes through the arts can be realized nationwide.

“As we move forward we look forward to more ways to integrate the University and Ballet Hispánico,” Dial said. “It is our goal that we will continue to partner together to create synergy that will be beneficial to our students and the greater community that we serve.” 

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