Elevating Artistry
10 Years of Innovation at the Instituto
Over the past decade, Ballet Hispánico’s Choreographic Institute has emerged as a beacon of artistic exploration, empowering choreographers to break through traditional boundaries and redefine the language of dance. In an environment that fosters collaboration and experimentation, these visionaries have been given the freedom to delve into their creative processes, weaving personal narratives with bold artistic expression.
This anniversary represents more than a celebration—it is a testament to the Instituto’s commitment to cultivating artistic excellence and encouraging fearless innovation. By embracing diverse perspectives, the program continues to advance the art form, contributing to a broader cultural conversation that highlights the beauty of creative exchange and transformation.
Fall 2024 Choreographer
MATTHEW NEENAN
Choreographer
Described as “one of America’s best dance poets” by The New York Times, began his dance training at the Boston Ballet School and with noted teachers Nan C. Keating and Jacqueline Cronsberg. He later attended the LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts and the School of American Ballet in New York. From 1994-2007, Matthew danced with the Philadelphia Ballet where he danced numerous principal roles in the classical, contemporary and Balanchine repertoire. From 2007 – 2020, Matthew was the Choreographer in Residence at the Philadelphia Ballet where he created 20 original ballets.
Matthew’s choreography has been premiered and performed by The New York City Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, The Washington Ballet, Ballet West, Ballet Met, Colorado Ballet, Ballet Memphis, Milwaukee Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Tulsa Ballet, OKC Ballet, Kansas City Ballet, Nashville Ballet, Nevada Ballet Theatre, Parsons Dance, Dance Aspen, BODYTRAFFIC, Juilliard Dance, and USC Kaufman School of Dance, among many others.
Previous Instituto Coregráficos
Daniela Urías - 2024
Contemporary dancer and choreographer, Daniela Urías graduated from the Superior School of Music and Dance of Monterrey. She is the creator and performer of dance works such as HEARTBEAT, El Nudo (The Knot), Maslow 3, and Segunda Naturaleza (Second Nature). Daniela has collaborated with international choreographers, including Miguel Mancillas, Billy Cowie, and Isabelle Schad, as well as with artists from other disciplines, for the creation of performances in art galleries.
She has participated in festivals such as FAOT, 4x4 TJ Night, Extremadura Festival, Scenic State Agenda, Onésimo Gonzalez Festival, and National Dance Showcase, among others. Notably, she has been honored as a beneficiary of the State Fund for Culture and the Arts of Sonora and the Scenic Creators Program of FONCA.
Currently based in in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico, she remains dedicated to honing her artistic craft and actively engages in collaborative endeavors within the realm of independent projects.
Mark Travis Rivera - 2023
Telling stories is at the core of Mark Travis Rivera's purpose in life. He is an award-winning creative entrepreneur and the Founder + Chief Executive Officer of The Professional Storyteller.
As a stubborn and determined 17-year-old, Rivera founded marked dance project (2009-2019), becoming the youngest person in the United States to create and lead an integrated dance company for disabled and non-disabled dancers. Inspired by his desire to dance as a person with cerebral palsy, he would go on to help disabled and non-disabled dancers find their voice as a dancer. He was also one of just a handful of artistic directors of color in the disability dance field. As an independent disabled choreographer, Mark is determined to build bridges between the main dance field and disability dance.
Michelle Manzanales - 2022 & 2015
is a choreographer and dance educator originally from Houston, TX who has created works for numerous professional companies, universities, and schools including Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre (Chicago, IL), Houston Metropolitan Dance Company under the direction of Dorrell Martin, the University of Houston, and Rice University among others. In 2007, Manzanales created Sugar in the Raw (Azucar Cruda) for Luna Negra Dance Theater, which was applauded by the Chicago Sun-Times as "a staggering, beautiful, accomplished new work." In 2010, her homage to Frida Kahlo, Paloma Querida, was hailed as a "visual masterpiece" by Lucia Mauro of the Chicago Tribune and has also been presented at the Capital Fringe Festival (Washington, DC), Texas Contemporary Weekend (Houston, TX), Spring to Dance (St. Louis, MO), Fort Worth Dance Festival (Fort Worth, TX), Festival de Danza Córdoba (Veracruz, Mexico), and honored by the American College Dance Festival.
Omar Román De Jesús - 2022
Omar Román De Jesús (Bayamón, Puerto Rico) is a Queer Puertorriqueño choreographer and director of NYC-based dance company Boca Tuya. He is a 2023 Baryshnikov Arts Center inaugural fellow at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, a 2022 Princess Grace Award Winner in Choreography, a 2022 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Choreography, and a 2020 Recipient of The Ann & Weston Hicks Choreography Fellowship (Jacob’s Pillow). He has been commissioned to create work on over 20 companies and pre professional schools including: The Baryshnikov Arts Center, The Paul Taylor Dance Company, Ballet Hispánico, Ballet Collective, Limón 2, MOVE NYC, Bruce Wood Dance, Joffrey Ballet Concert Group, Whim W’him, Parsons Dance, The Ailey School, and Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.
Omar’s stage work has been awarded top recognition through the Joffrey Academy of Dance's Winning Works Choreographic Competition, Whim W’him’s Choreographic Shindig, The Dance Gallery Festival, Reverb Dance Festival, and the International Dance Festival of Puerto Rico where he was awarded the Ambassador of Dance medal.
Marielis Garcia - 2021
Marielis is a Dominican American dance artist who choreographs. She have performed and toured with Brian Brooks, Peter Kyle, iKapa, and Stefanie Batten Bland, among others. Marielis received a MFA in Digital and Interdisciplinary Art Practice from City College of New York. Her professional affiliations include being artistic advisor for Judson Memorial Church Arts, writer for the Gibney Journal, curator for STUFFED Arts and associate special programs curator for the Museum of Modern Art in the Judson Dance Theater: The Work is Never Done exhibition.
In recent years, Garcia has received Ballet Hispánico’s Instituto Coreográfico residency, and Alvin Ailey’s New Directions Choreography Lab residency.
Ramón Oller - 2019
Ramón Oller is a Dancer, Choreographer, and Director of a Contemporary Dance company, who was born in Esparraguera, Barcelona, in 1962. He commenced his career in amateur theatre and starred on a kid's show during his childhood. He later studied dramatic arts at El institut de Teatre de Barcelona. Simultaneously, he studied Classical and Contemporary dance in Barcelona. The musical, the zarzuela, the opera, and ballet were added to his pursuits when he moved to Paris, and then London. When he transferred to New York City, a close relationship developed between Ramón Oller and Ballet Hispánico, where he took on the role of resident choreographer and professor, imparting classes and choreography workshops for more than a decade.
As the founder of Metros, a dance company in Barcelona, he has travelled across the globe, staging more than 40 productions including: Romeo and Juliet, Sangrepura, Carmen, Madam Butterfly, Bernarda Alba, Pecado Pescado, and Dalidance.
Maria Barrios - 2019
Maria Eugenia Barrios was born in Caracas, Venezuela to a family of artists, Armando Barrios (painter) and Reyna Rivas (writer and singer). Starting at a verly age, Barrios has developed simultaneous international careers as a dancer, choreographer, costume designer, and baster teacher, and has acquired substantial experience as a ballet mistress, assistant to renowned choreographers and assistant to artistic directors in various companies.
Barrios speaks six languages: Spanish, French, English, Italian, German, and Hebrew. She has musical knowledge and she also studied operatic singing. She has choreographed several operas and operettes at the Luzern Theatre.
Maria was also the Founder and Artistic Director of the Contemproary Ballet of Caracas from 19993 until 2009.
Bennyroyce Royon - 2018
Bennyroyce Royon is a Filipino-American director, choreographer, and dancer based in Brooklyn, NY. Royon received a BFA in Dance from The Juilliard School in 2006. As a performer and collaborator he has worked on Broadway (Tony Award-winning 2015 Broadway revival of The King and I), Off-Broadway (Artist of Light), at The Metropolitan Opera (Madama Butterfly, Turandot, The First Emperor), at the New York Philharmonic (The Cunning Little Vixen), and with dance companies including Armitage Gone! Dance, Sidra Bell Dance New York, Carolyn Dorfman Dance, Collective Body Dance Lab, Cas Public, and Bad Boys of Dance.
Royon has worked with choreographers Aszure Barton, Karole Armitage, Darrell Grand Moultrie, Christopher Gattelli, Greg Zane, Sidra Bell, and Carolyn Dorfman, among others. He has created new works for Atlanta Ballet, The Joffrey Academy of Dance, Point Park University, Marymount Manhattan College, among others.
In 2010, he founded Bennyroyce Dance, a project-based contemporary dance company.
Gustavo Ramírez Sansano - 2018
Gustavo Ramírez Sansano was Artistic Director of Luna Negra Dance Theater (2009-2013), and now he combines his work as a freelance choreographer with the direction of Titoyaya Dansa, the company he founded in Spain with Veronica Garcia Moscardo in 2006.
Sansano has received numerous awards for his choreography, including first prize at the Ricard Moragas Competition in Barcelona (1997), Prix Dom Perignon Choreographic Competition in Hamburg (2001), and Premio de Las Artes Escénicas de la Comunidad Valenciana (2005). Sansano has been commissioned to create works for many companies such as Nederlands Dans Theater, Compania Nacional de Danza, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Luzerner tanz Theater, Ballet BC, The Hamburg Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, Ballet Hispánico, and Luna Negra Dance Theater, among others.
Carlos Pons Guerra - 2017
Carlos Pons Guerra was born in Gran Canaria, Spain, and has been creating dance since 2012. Nominated for the Best Emerging Artist category at the UK Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards 2015, he has been described as a choreographer "of innate intelligence and theatricality" by Dance Europe Magazine, and his choreography as containing “dazzling imagery” that is “superlatively danced” by the Financial Times.
Carlos has choreographed for companies including Ballet Hispánico of New York, Rambert, Nashville Ballet, Northern Ballet, Sadler’s Wells, the National Ballet of the Dominican Republic, the Metropolitan Ballet of Medellín, Northern Opera, Mind the Gap, Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Cahoots Northern Ireland, Attakkalari (India), and ENDanza (Dominican Republic), as well as creating and touring his independent work internationally with DeNada Dance Theatre.
Stephanie Martinez - 2016
Over eleven years of award-winning works, Chicago-based choreographer Stephanie Martinez moves her audiences along a journey guided by the kinetic momentum of her work. With original creations for Joffrey Ballet, Ballet Hispanico, Luna Negra Dance Theater, Charlotte Ballet, Sacramento Ballet, Eugene Ballet, Nashville Ballet, Ballet Memphis, Kansas City Ballet, and National Choreographers Initiative among others, Martinez’s versatility expands the boundaries of contemporary ballet movement. Martinez has created over 60 ballets on companies and collegiate programs across the country.
In 2015, Martinez was awarded Joffrey Ballet’s “Winning Works: Choreographers of Color” commission and the Chicago 3Arts Award in recognition for her work as a female artist of color. More recently, Martinez was awarded an NEA grant for her premiere of Bliss! with Joffrey Ballet. Dubbed “a chameleon” of choreography by the Chicago Tribune, Martinez’s psychologically revelatory works challenge the viewer’s notion of what’s possible.
Fernando Melo - 2015
Fernando Melo is originally from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and resides in Sweden. At the age of sixteen he was awarded a scholarship to train at the Vienna State Opera Ballet; since then he has been in Europe, building his career as a dancer and choreographer and creating works for stages around the world. Among the companies he has choreographed for are Göteborgsoperans Danskompani (Skånes Dansteater), Norrdans (Sweden), National Dance Company (Wales, UK), Introdans (Netherlands), Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz (Munich, Germany), Luzerner Theater (Switzerland,) Aterballetto (Italy), and Ballet Hispánico (New York, USA).
Fernando choreographs and directs dance film, also choreographs for opera working extensively with the director Patrick Kinmonth on such projects as Gassmann’s L’Opera seria for La Monnaie, Brussels with René Jacobs, Strauss’ Daphne at Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse with Hartmut Haenchen, and Glanert’s Solaris for Oper Köln with Lothar Zagrosek.
Miguel Mancillas - 2014
Miguel received his formal education on contemporary and classic techniques in Mexico City, under Xavier Francis, Isabel Hernández, Ángeles Martínez, Zygfryd Rzysko and Guillermo Maldonado, among others.
The Festival Internacional de Danza Comporánea de San Luis Potosí (International Contemporary Dance Festival of San Luis Potosí) acknowledged him and granted him the award of best interpreter on two separate occasions (1988 and 1990).
Miguel's work is part of the repertoire presented by companies throughout Mexico and USA. He has done choreographic set ups for companies such as Mordine Dance Company, Luna Negra, Paralelo 32, and Danza Contemporánea Universitaria. Thanks to his valuable experience, Miguel has been invited as a consultant, curator and jury for different national and international events. Through his constant, uninterrupted devotion, Miguel has been distinguished as one of the most outstanding artistic characters of his country, and he is regarded as a main choreographer of his generation.
Rosie Herrera - 2013
Rosie Herrera is a graduate from theNew World School of the Arts with a BFA in Dance Performance. She has been commissioned by The Miami Light Project in association with the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts and the American Dance Festival in 2010, 2011, and 2013 where her company was presented to sold-out audiences. She has had two residencies at ADF recreating her work “Various Stages of Drowning: A Cabaret” on ADF dancers and creating a new work in progress this past summer entitled “Make Believe.”
Rosie is a classically trained lyric coloratura soprano and performs with the Performers Music Institute Opera Ensemble in addition to choreographing and staging operas independently throughout Miami. She has also collaborated on productions with The South Miami Dade Cultural Arts Center, New World School of the Arts, The University of Central Florida, Six Floor Ensemble, Zoetic Stage and with theater artist Rudi Goblen as well as filmmakers Adam Reignand Lucas Leyva. As a rehearsal director, co-choreographer and performer, Rosie was in residency at the Chat Noir Cabaret in Miami Beach with the interdisciplinary performance ensemble Circ X.
Her company has been presented by the Northrop Dance Series, Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Gotham Dance at Skirball and Focus Dance at The Joyce. Rosie is a 2010 MANCC choreographic fellow and a 2011 Miami Dance Fellow. Most recently she was awarded a Princess Grace Choreographic Fellowship for her new work with Ballet Hispanico entitled “Show.Girl.”
Ballet Hispánico is deeply grateful to all those who have supported the Instituto Coreográfico over the past 10 years, including: