Ballet Hispanico

Tina Ramirez, Artistic Director

Tina Ramirez has combined her incomparable artistic vision with years of performance and teaching experience to create and sustain the nation's preeminent Hispanic-American dance company and school, Ballet Hispanico. Her achievements have earned her the National Medal of Arts, the nation’s highest cultural honor, presented to her in November 2005 by President George W. Bush and Mrs. Bush.

Born in Venezuela, the daughter of a Mexican bullfighter and a Puerto Rican educator, Ms. Ramirez came at the age of seven to the United States, where she studied dance under New York's grande dame of Spanish dance, Lola Bravo, as well as with such noted teachers as Alexandra Danilova and Anna Sokolow. Her first professional performing experience took her on a tour of the United States, Canada and Cuba with the Federico Rey Dance Company. Subsequent appearances included extensive touring in Spain, Spoleto's Festival of Two Worlds with John Butler, the Broadway productions of Kismet and Lute Song and the television adaptation of Man of La Mancha.

In 1963, Ms. Ramirez returned to New York to fulfill a promise to take over her retiring Spanish dance teacher's studio. In 1967, she conceived and directed Operation High Hopes, a professional dance training program for inner-city children. In addition to teaching, she arranged performances for her young students as the Tina Ramirez Dancers.

Encouraged by the skill of her pupils and increasing requests for performances, Ms. Ramirez formally established Ballet Hispanico in 1970. Since then, the Ballet Hispanico Company has performed for more than two million people on three continents, building a repertory of over 75 works created specifically for the troupe by some of the world's most acclaimed choreographers. The Ballet Hispanico School offers year-round professional training in ballet, Spanish dance and modern for over 600 students. In addition to performing with Ballet Hispanico's own company, alumni of the school have gone on to careers in theater (Priscilla Lopez, Nancy Ticotin), film (Jennifer Lopez, Leelee Sobieski, Rachel Ticotin) and television (Michael DeLorenzo), as well as with other leading dance companies. Ballet Hispanico pioneered the development of arts education; entitled “Primeros Pasos” (“First Steps”), this innovative program annually serves over 17,000 students and teachers in New York City and across the country.

In 2004 AARP Magazine deemed Ms. Ramirez “a cultural trailblazer” and chose her as one of its ten “People of the Year.” In 2002, she received the Dance Magazine Award, one of the highest honors in the dance field. In 1999, she received a prestigious Hispanic Heritage Award in recognition of her outstanding achievements in education, presented at a gala celebration at The Kennedy Center. In 1987, Governor Mario Cuomo presented Ms. Ramirez with the Governor's Arts Award in recognition of Ballet Hispanico's outstanding contribution to the quality of New York's cultural life.

Ms. Ramirez was named a Latina of the Year by Latina Magazine in 2000. Among her numerous other citations are the Mayor's Award of Honor for Arts and Culture (1983) and the Mayor's Ethnic New Yorker Award (1986), both presented by Mayor Edward I. Koch; and the Manhattan Borough President's Award (1988), presented by David N. Dinkins. She received citations of honor at the 1995 New York Dance and Performance Awards (the “Bessies”) and at the 1992 Capezio Dance Awards. Ms. Ramirez received a 1997 GEMS Woman of the Year Award from the international GEMS Television Network.

Ms. Ramirez currently serves on the board of The New 42nd Street, Inc and as Co-chair for the New York City Department of Education Dance Curriculum Blueprint Committee. She has also served on the New York City Advisory Commission for Cultural Affairs, numerous panels for the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts, the selection panel for The Rockefeller Foundation's Choreographers Awards and the board of the Association of Hispanic Arts.

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