Ballet Hispanico's Apollo Theater Debut Honors Tito Puente, Celia Cruz
December 17, 2011 11:35am | By Jeff Mays, DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
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Ballet Hispanico dancers perform "Club Havana," one of the pieces it will perform at its Apollo debut Saturday. (Ballet Hispanico )
HARLEM—Despite having traveled around the world for the past 40 years relaying its mission of promoting Latino culture through dance, Ballet Hispanico has never performed at the Apollo Theater, just miles from its Upper West Side home.
All of that will change Saturday when the group debuts a 90-minute show at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. featuring three performances based on the music of two people who knew a little something about Harlem and the Apollo Theater, Tito Puente and Celia Cruz.
"We want to bring Ballet Hispanico to more of the people. We've had a wonderful run downtown but we need to be accessible to everybody and this is the kind of music and dancing that are community thrives on," said the group's artistic director Eduardo Vilaro.
Founded on the Upper West Side 41 years ago, Ballet Hispanico is a contemporary dance company that "fuses classical movement with Latino movement," said Vilaro, who was a dancer in the company in the 1980s.
"It's called Ballet Hispanico because ballet means dance in French but that doesn't mean we are just about tutu's," he said. "When you see a piece, you will see things that are recognizable to Latino culture and some of it not. It adds to the idea that culture is not static."
Vilaro will also debut his first original work for the company called "Asuka." The work, commissioned by Goya Foods to celebrate their 75th anniversary, honors the legacy of Cruz, who died in 2003 but was known as the "Queen of Salsa."
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