Catherine Tharin talks with Eduardo Vilaro, Artistic Director and CEO of Ballet Hispánico, the largest Latino cultural organization in the United States and one of America’s cultural treasures, which supports three main programs, the Company, School of Dance, and Community Arts Partnerships. Ballet Hispánico’s New York City headquarters provide the space and cultural heart for Latinx dance in the U.S.

Interview by Catherine Tharin

Ballet Hispánico founder and artistic leader, Tina Ramirez, appointed you as artistic director, what has been your experience heading the company?

It is a great honor to lead such an important and essential organization. My experience heading the organization is one filled with great joy and excitement. Yes, there will always be challenges but to have the ability to inspire and change lives is a gift.

Daily, I see the power of this organization’s mission manifest in young students, artists, and audiences. We are a beacon for the power of the arts by making sure there is a platform for the narratives of our community and a space for youth to feel empowered. I am continuously energized by the power we have to transform lives and educate the world to a deeper understanding of our many Hispanic/Latine cultures.

As a dancer with the company from 1985-1996, and with that insider’s knowledge, what change in your relationship with the company was required to lead effectively?

It is quite a huge shift to go from dancer to director, and I don’t think I could have done it without my experience in Chicago, founding and developing my own dance company, Luna Negra Dance Theater. As dancers, we are not given or shown the tools necessary for larger-picture decision-making when it comes to the administration and vision leadership one needs for this role.

As a dancer, you are focused on the art and maintaining the canvas, which is the body. It is time-consuming and requires a singular focus. Being an artistic director requires you to remove yourself from your internal conversation of artistry and open up to a vast world that is not centered on you but on the ecosystem of the organization and the field. Building my own dance company gave me the administrative and business acumen necessary for this role.

In what ways have you expanded or deepened the mission of the Ballet Hispánico you inherited?

My vision for Ballet Hispánico has been and continues to be expanding the ideas of who we are as Hispanics/Latinos by immersing the organization in the diversity of the many cultures included in Latinidad. We still struggle with stereotype and icon representations both nationally and internationally. By deepening the awareness of our multiple intersecting cultures and diasporas through innovative works of dance, holistic curriculums for training, and conscientious community engagement, we break the box we are put into by the mainstream and can then help expand the cultural dialogue for all.

As an advocacy leader of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the arts, who recognizes the importance of nurturing and building Latinx leaders, what are you planning for the future regarding these topics?

Because Ballet Hispánico was founded to give access to a marginalized community, we are an example of DEI work. Just by existing and placing ourselves in full view, we take back the power of representation and offer a different perspective. In my opinion, DEI is about allowing, respecting, uplifting, and inviting everyone to the table as equals. Our work is to continue to be an example for all. The social justice movement opened my mind to the realization that we are part of the DEI toolbox for this nation and while other organizations need to reframe and work to be inclusive, we have been that example from day one.

In terms of the future, I think we have placed programs that focus on nurturing and building Latinx leaders. Our Instituto Coreográfico is a lab that offers Latinx choreographers all the tools necessary to enhance their trajectory and build new leaders for the field. The Pa’lante program – a full scholarship-based program – provides the opportunity for BIPOC pre-professional students to expand their training and prepare for their professional careers. Finally, Dialogos, our forums on dance, culture and social justice,, will continue to build upon centering Latinx leaders in the world and giving our audiences a chance to experience what DEI means.

You worked in NYC, then Chicago, and again in NYC. How do the cities compare in their embrace of dance?

New York City is one of the dance capitals of the world and embraces all genres of dance. It is also a city where the impact of dance is clearly seen and felt. The community is larger and has a bigger international presence. Chicago is a great city, but dance is not one of the arts that is widely consumed or uplifted. It is harder for dance artists to be fully appreciated, mainly because there are not enough resources to support an extensive dance community in Chicago.

I was lucky; my time in Chicago was during a dance renaissance, and I feel I was part of uplifting dance along with other leaders and organizations during those years. But there is nothing like New York and its dance audience, which has been built over the years and nurtured by extraordinary dance eras.

Please describe your aesthetic and practical approach to your own award-winning and commissioned choreography. What is your creative process?

My work is built on illuminating the fullness of the Latino world. I have strived to create work that gives an alternate view of dance made by Latinos by taking the essences, traditions, and stories of our culture and fusing them with different movement vocabularies.

I am interested in removing the exoticism that we still struggle with today in the mainstream and giving an alternate view of what it means to create culturally specific dance. Much of this has to do with my immigrant story and the lens I use to see my culture. I cannot be folkloric because I was extracted from my homeland, nor can create work that is considered American because I have a history of being othered. So, I like to create work that speaks to the fusion of how and who we become as immigrants.

My process usually starts with the music. I am drawn to creating by falling in love and immersing myself in the music. From there, I develop tasks, tools, and strategies that help develop the images swirling in my mind. Depending on the project, there is usually a research period that I use to delve into the theme, narrative, or essence of the music. In the studio, I share my research and intentions with the dancers, and then I develop tools for the dancers to use in order to help expand on my own experiments for the new work. Some of these tools are improvisation, composition, development, and movement. We build and correct as we go, but ultimately it is a collaborative effort.

Images from some of Ballet Hispánico’s repertory performances:

*House of Mad'moiselle* © Rosalie O'Connor Photography

Your bio on the Ballet Hispánico site states, "Mr. Vilaro’s own choreography is devoted to capturing the Latin American experience in its totality and diversity and through its intersectionality with other diasporas. His works are catalysts for new dialogues about what it means to be an American.” Please share an example of your approach.

This past spring, 2024, I premiered a work titled Buscando a Juan, inspired by the Afro-Hispanic painter Juan de Pareja. Juan was Diego Velasquez’ enslaved assistant, who later became a prodigious artist once he was freed. There is little information on Juan’s life, but I was able to mediate on the information I found. In creating this work, first as a sight-specific work for the Metropolitan Museum and then for the proscenium, I am uplifting a narrative that has been silenced and unrecognized for centuries. And I am able to demonstrate the power of perseverance and innovation of enslaved and colonized people.

Every aspect of this work demonstrated the power of the unsung artist. The music by Osvaldo Golijov was a layered mass he wrote that continues fusions of Afro-Latino rhythms, opera, and songs that speak of faith, deliverance, and freedom. The movement was a fusion of Afro-Cuban movement and contemporary movement, and then there are my powerful dancers, who are also a group of hybrids and fused bodies. All of this came together to create Juan and speaks to the quote in the question.

*Buscando a Juan*. photos courtesy of Ballet Hispánico

Will we see more of your artistic work? Do you have time to take class, or to muse?

Yes, I am dedicating myself to continue creating work that speaks to this vision by taking brief sabbaticals to muse and develop process. In my current artistic space, I am valuing more time, so I don’t think I want to make work the way I used to, which was faster in order to meet deadlines. I still teach classes and have a physical regiment that includes Pilates and other fitness methodologies.

In what ways does your Cuban heritage influence or impact your approach to leadership and to art-making?

My Cuban-ness is part of who I am in everything I do. We are extremely passionate because of the history of trials and challenges we have had. We are people who have developed a culture from the trauma of colonization. We are joyous, musical and arts driven and above all we celebrate life and that seeps into everything I do as an artists and most times is reflected in my work.

The Ballet Hispánico School is a bedrock of the institution. What is your philosophy of education as it relates to the Hispanic community?

Our philosophy at the Ballet Hispanico School is to provide a training space for young people to find their voice as artists, inspire their creative spirit, ignite pride in their Latine culture, and give them a powerful sense of belonging.

We do this through a multi-layered pedagogical approach to dance that focuses on excellence, compassion, and a focus on the whole artist, which includes social and emotional support. We include the family as part of their training as our Latino families often do not have the resources or prior experience with a child as an artist. The Ballet Hispánico School was born of the community; it was the plaza (or center) where families came together to support their young artists, and we hold that today as one of our essential values.

You commission choreographers to choreograph for the company. What is your goal with these commissions? In what ways do you ensure their success?

Commissions at Ballet Hispánico help uplift the vision of the organization, as well as build on a catalyst for developing Latine leaders for the future and create new narratives that dispel stereotypes while upholding icon cultural representations that are important to the community. My top priority is to create innovative expressions of what it means to be Latine in today’s world. Educating all audiences to the depth and breadth of the Latine cultures' intersectionality and the brilliance that our diasporas have bestowed on the cultural landscape. These new commissions mean we are responsible for adding the voices necessary to demonstrate the power of diversity and cultural connection.

What role does the Board play?

The board is our governance arm. I am so proud of our Ballet Hispanico’s board, as they are a diverse set of individuals devoted to the mission of the organization and assure its success. Their main responsibilities are the financial health of the organization, fundraising, and the wellbeing of all our staff members.

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CATHERINE THARIN choreographs, curates, teaches, and writes. She danced in the Erick Hawkins Dance Company in the 1980s and '90s, was the Dance and Performance Curator at 92NY, NYC, for 15 years, and was a senior adjunct professor at Iona College, New Rochelle, NY, for 20 years. She writes dance reviews for The Dance Enthusiast and The Boston Globe, articles about dance for Side of Culture, and reports on dance for WAMC/Northeast Public Radio. She curated a 2024 dance season at Stissing Center, Pine Plains, NY. She continues to teach the Hawkins philosophy, technique, and repertory as an artist-in-residence. Her latest dance is a collaboration with jazz composer Joel Forrester and filmmaker Lora Robertson. Says Fjord Magazine of her work presented in November 2023: "gentle and precise movement contained to a small range, a good deal of floor work...cast a net of whimsical translucent sheen over it all. The evening was consistently charming, well-crafted and paced."