Hi dance friends, and welcome to The Dance Edit podcast. I’m editor and producer Margaret Fuhrer, here a day earlier than usual this Thanksgiving week—happy Thanksgiving to you all. And actually, this episode, which is a special partnership with The Kennedy Center, is very Thanksgiving-appropriate: It’s a conversation that’s full of gratitude for Tina Ramirez, the renowned and beloved founder of Ballet Hispánico, who passed away in September.
So, our guests today are Eduardo Vilaro, the current artistic director and CEO of Ballet Hispánico, and Verdery Roosevelt, who served as the company’s executive director for more than 30 years, from 1978 to 2010. Verdery helped Tina implement her vision for a cultural sanctuary for Latinx dancers and dance styles, a space for Latinx artists to flourish. Eduardo, who danced with the company under Tina and Verdery’s leadership, is now building and expanding on that vision, with a particular focus on the organization’s art as advocacy. And Ballet Hispánico’s new evening-length work Doña Perón, which the company is about to perform at The Kennedy Center, reflects both the company’s bedrock principles and its new trajectory: It is the story of an iconic Latina, told by Latina choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, danced by this company of Latinx artists, and performed for a huge multicultural audience. It is in itself a work of advocacy.
It was such a privilege to hear Eduardo and Verdery, these two very thoughtful, deeply experienced leaders, talk about legacy and diversity, and their memories of Tina. Here they are.
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Margaret Fuhrer:
Eduardo, Verdery, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. Welcome.
Verdery Roosevelt:
Thank you.
Eduardo Vilaro:
Thank you so much. It’s wonderful to be here.
Margaret Fuhrer:
I actually wanted to begin by discussing your relationship, the two of you, since you’ve known each other for a while now. Can you talk a little about how you got to know each other and then how you’ve worked together over the years?
Verdery Roosevelt:
Well, Eduardo came into Ballet Hispánico in 1985, perhaps?
Eduardo Vilaro:
Yes, that’s right.
Verdery Roosevelt:
And he was immediately one of the core of dancers that was shaping Ballet Hispánico’s future. These aren’t things you know when they happen, but this was pretty obvious. And the dancers were always very communicative. I hoped I was the same with them, and they became so important to what we were doing. So I feel like that created a relationship that I’ve treasured ever since. And it has been a very long time. We must have spent 10 years, maybe more, in daily communication a lot of times. And Eduardo did more than the company. He was very much involved in education and even in training and working with the students on performing. And so it was a very rich engagement.
Eduardo Vilaro:
For me, I’m so glad I have this opportunity to speak about Verdery and our relationship. From the moment that I arrived in at Ballet Hispánico as a young dancer, I noticed the integrity, the focus that Verdery had for the organization and the unmoving nerve to just continue and push. And that taught me a lot. It did. So sometimes we do that: We don’t understand that we are mentoring people as we go along doing that. But for an immigrant child who grew up in the Bronx to be given role models that then you … I still think of Verdery all the time when I’m doing some work here, and when I was dancing, the choices that were made and how that was done.
So it was instrumental to me, just as much as Tina was in instrumental for me from the artistic point of view, even when I was running a program, to be able to have a conversation and listen to the knowledge, the experience was very impactful. And this is the thing that we need to understand today, that we really want to give Black and Brown voices an opportunity. You give them an opportunity by giving them the chance to learn from you and giving them platform. And I think that both Verdery and Tina gave me a specific platform to grow and develop. Of course, there was me, and I just grabbed on and latched onto it. So that’s just me. But I think that that’s a very beautiful thing that I still hold dear.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Well, let’s talk about Tina, the great Tina Ramirez, and the beginnings of Ballet Hispánico, going back further in time here. What was the mission for the company as Tina originally conceived of it? Why did she want to start a company and what needs was she hoping to meet?
Verdery Roosevelt:
Well, she had to start a company because she had a school full of children that she was training to be professionals. And they were now teenagers and there was no company that would hire them. And she inherited Lola Bravo’s Spanish dance studio in 1963. And so she was training in Spanish dance forms, lots and lots of dance forms from Spain. And the city was asking for performances, because those were also challenging times in our neighborhoods. So she created it. It had to happen. There was no one else to do it. And of course, no one told her how hard it was going to be.
And so it was really all about giving Black and Brown children a place in dance, giving Hispanic cultures a place in dance, bringing these cultures to the public in a way that introduced them to Hispanic cultures. No one really knew what Hispanic dance forms were, even—there were just not that many dancers who knew the forms. And so it was a whole new aspect of movement that she was bringing to life in the dance field. It was a whole lot of challenges all at once. Pretty amazing.
Margaret Fuhrer:
The company’s school has been central to its work from the beginning it seems like, and it remains so now. Why was it so important to the organization’s mission in the early days? Why does it continue to be so? And then, how have you seen the impact of its education efforts sort of ripple out into Latinx community? That was like, six questions, I’m sorry.
Verdery Roosevelt:
Well, certainly in those days, there had been an enormous migration of Puerto Ricans largely to New York City, and Ballet Hispánico and Spanish cultures were a part of their heritage where they could feel pride and ownership. And so the school became a way of bringing those children into the community and giving them a different future and giving them a different way to approach the world and giving them their own strength. So it was deeply embedded in the community and the evolution of the Latinx community in this country.
Eduardo Vilaro:
I’m going to wrap both the previous question and this one. For a Latina woman to forge ahead at a time where we were dealing in New York City with white flight, everyone had moved to the suburbs, Black and Brown communities were left to fend in rotting neighborhoods. So when you hear Verdery say, there was no other choice—there was no other choice. And so you had incredible people at that time, Tina being one of them, Ailey had already started, Arthur Mitchell with DTH, really focusing, these mavericks, these people saying, “My community needs help, needs support, needs a way of looking at themselves differently.”
And that is the thing, it’s to change the trajectory of a young child from, “I am not worthy, I don’t belong” to, “I am at the table and I am guiding my own future.” And while we still think it’s just dance, it’s not just dance. Because when you’re poor and you walk into—even Tina at that time where you see nurturing, where when you live in the projects or somewhere else and you don’t get that, your life changes forever. Whether it’s minuscule or whether it’s huge. And I’ve seen the huge that this mission has accomplished in many, many children.
And so it’s important for me certainly, to maintain and expand Tina’s school, the idea of a school, because that’s where we started, that’s the center of it. The heart is dance, the backbone of this organization is education.
Verdery Roosevelt:
Yes. This is so nicely put.
Eduardo Vilaro:
Thank you!
Margaret Fuhrer:
Well, let’s talk a little more about the work that is and has been required to preserve and to build on Tina’s legacy. How else have you seen the company grow and evolve over the years? And what do you see as natural directions for it to continue to grow?
Verdery Roosevelt:
When she started, there were no works by Hispanic choreographers. There were no Hispanic choreographers. There was this huge void other than the traditional forms of Spanish dance that had come from Spain. And so she went to friends, she went to Talley Beatty and Geoffrey Holder and people who understood what she was trying to do and could speak to the Hispanic culture and work with students who were learning fast, all these different forms of dance voices. And so for a very long time, it was really about finding someone who could envision, who could turn her vision into a stage work, and then bringing that to the public, who knew nothing about Hispanic cultures. And so you were training an audience as much as you were training the dance field. And when Eduardo came, it was a very subtle but critical shift in how that mission became real, became manifest. And I’ll let Eduardo talk about that.
Eduardo Vilaro:
So I want to go back, because I always get so excited—and I’ve spoken about it, I’ve written about it, this whole way Tina started, and the way I see it, what a beautiful thing to go to friends, and to go to Black friends, to understand that at that point we were working together. This city was built by Black and Brown young kids. The music, everything that came out of hip hop, vogue, this was together. We’re in a society that’s now much more polarized. And so Tina understood that we needed to work together. And so to have works like Talley Beatty—let’s be quite frank, the African diaspora is strong in the Latinx world. 14 million enslaved people were brought to the new world. Only 400,000 came to America. Where did everybody else go? To Latin America.
And so you can’t disassociate yourself, although people continue to try. And that’s why it’s important to understand that relationship, that their diaspora is our diaspora as well. And while we still have issues about proximity to power and all that stuff and how passing has happened, this is a legacy that we live with. And so the beauty of Tina doing that in the beginning was breaking that up already, although it wasn’t explicit.
And that’s where I come in. I made it clearly explicit of what was being done and what we’re doing to further expand and enhance. And so what I tried to bring to BH is a sense of that wider diasporic legacy that we as Latinos and—or Latinas, Latinx, Latina, I want to make sure that everyone knows that I include—but that is important to understand, that I can bring into the organization a Filipino choreographer, because that is of the Spanish diaspora that’s also part of us. I can bring in an African choreographer because that is from our African diaspora.
So to start undoing that stereotype and box that we’ve been put into is what’s really developed in these years under my watch. And then also to take back some of the narratives that have been in our history for years, of who gets to tell our stories and why. And so, more women telling stories, more choreographers telling stories about Evita or Carmen or these icons that everyone goes, “Oh, that’s Latino, that’s Latina.” Is it? And so, it is when we are telling it. And so how do we create and recreate? So as we move forward, I think that that’s where we continue to really grow, is now not only going to the icons, but continuing to create new stories and add the voices of the now and the future.
Margaret Fuhrer:
That’s beautiful. And I think you’ve essentially answered a question that I had later on the list.
Eduardo Vilaro:
I tend to do that. I’m so sorry.
Margaret Fuhrer:
No, don’t apologize. That’s a journalist’s dream. But the question was, and it’s a complicated question: I think some people think of Ballet Hispánico as the Ailey of the Latin X dance world. How do you feel about that kind of comparison?
Eduardo Vilaro:
I think that’s a problem within itself that we have in this world. We love to categorize, we love to put things in boxes. And it’s just not right to say that. We are brothers and sisters in the same fight of what we’re trying to show about our cultures. Ailey’s this big company, it’s a big ballet company and it’s lovely. And I love Ailey. I was trained at Ailey for some time. But I love the connection I have with a smaller vehicle. And the vehicle is growing, so I can’t say smaller anymore, the vehicle has grown. But, I don’t know, there’s something extremely important for me that I am still on the ground. So my leadership is about on the ground. And that’s because I’m a direct descendant of Tina. So I guess I’ve answered your question in a different way. I just don’t think there’s a comparison and there shouldn’t be.
Margaret Fuhrer:
I like answers that are challenging the premise of the question. I think that’s great.
Eduardo Vilaro:
Thank you. Thanks a lot. [laughter]
Margaret Fuhrer:
So, Verdery, I have a question specifically for you now, because we talk to a lot of artistic directors on the podcast, but we actually don’t often speak with executive directors. And I think their perspective on all of these questions is crucial. So I’m wondering, when you were executive director at Ballet Hispánico for the more than three decades you were there, how did you see your role in the cultivation and the preservation of legacy?
Verdery Roosevelt:
I’m probably not the best person to ask because I feel like I was clueless. I’m not sure anyone quite understood the scope of Tina’s vision. I remember our first night at the Joyce Theater in 1983, and one of our board members came in and she was handed a playbill. Now, we had been doing New York Seasons all over the city with beautiful, handmade with loving care, programs that we Xeroxed and folded and handed out. And here was a playbill. And she picked it up and she looked at it and she looked at me and she grinned and she said, “Who’d a thunk?”
And that’s the first time I said, “Well, Tina did.” She always had a vision that went so far into the future that it was a given. And you’re just working, trying to put the pieces in place that you’re working with at that moment. And there keep getting to be more pieces. And then you hand it off and you realize, the vision itself, you can give that job to someone and they will take it and run with it. That’s how huge that vision was. And Eduardo has done such a beautiful job that it all feels very natural. You don’t think about it when you’re doing it. It’s just natural.
Margaret Fuhrer:
That’s because you were a good executive director.
Verdery Roosevelt:
It was a lot of work, too. I will also say that.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Well, so now, Eduardo, you’re part of this new generation of company leadership. And you’ve talked a little already about how important having the mentorship of Tina and of Verdery has been to you. Can you expand a bit on the advice they’ve shared that’s been especially helpful?
Eduardo Vilaro:
Let’s start with Tina. I still say a lot of what Tina said to me that I really thought was important. That really helped dancers understand artistry and artistry as she saw it. Intentionality, the intention and focus of preparing for your form, and—it’s like making the decision beforehand and having a plan to be on stage. What is that for you?
And then also one of the things that Tina really gave me is a hunger for curiosity. She for some reason, felt that I was the dancer that she had to give the New York Times after she had read it. She’s like, “Read it.” She would give me articles, she would give me books. And she knew that I loved it. So I just ate it up.
And so she wanted us also to be very thoughtful in how we approached our roles. Very theater-like, because she worked in the theater, so she had approaches of method acting and things like that that to this day, the dancers say, “Well, how did you know that?” And it’s like, “Because I had that experience. I was giving this, I’m giving you these tools.”
So she really taught me that dance is a passed down knowledge. I love Labban, I love everything and how to notate. But there is nothing like having someone who did the role before you sit down and talk about what you’re doing, and whether it’s abstract or whether it is narrative and linear, it’s the same thing. You are passing down such emotion, strength, hope, and she gave me that.
From Verdery, it was applying yourself, I said that earlier, and understanding that you can’t take no for an answer. Because I remember, I don’t know if you remember, we were doing the shelter program and I had to run out and find lunch and breakfast for the kids.
Verdery Roosevelt:
Oh! [laughter]
Eduardo Vilaro:
I’d never done any fundraising—that’s called fundraising, who knew? And she was like, “Well, go check McDonald’s, see if they’ll do something. And I know you could do, just don’t take no for an answer. You can do this.” And I did. And McDonald’s gave us for two weeks, for two programs, breakfast every morning. And then I got a restaurant to give us lunch. For kids living in homeless shelters, which was remarkable. What we did for those young people they will never forget.
And so that stays with me to this day. And how I pass that on from both these amazing women to the artists that on a daily basis I remind them who Ballet Hispánico is, or my staff—because now we have a bigger staff—what is that? And it’s so funny, we’re now talking about a new strategic plan and all of this that we’re talking about comes up all the time.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Actually, here are some questions that probably also come up during those planning sessions. So in Ballet Hispánico’s work today, and this is for both of you, how do the two of you see the balance between, on the one hand, nurturing and building the Latinx dance community, and on the other, fostering engagement with and understanding of these dance traditions in the non-Latinx community?
Eduardo Vilaro:
How did we or how do we now, is what you’re saying, right?
Margaret Fuhrer:
I guess it was a bit of both—how you used to, how you do now, where the overlap is and what the evolution has been.
Eduardo Vilaro:
So I think Verdery said it earlier, was, that’s the thing about immigrant communities, that there’s no option to fail. You have to do it. And we come from that, from Tina saying, “Oh my God, my community.” There was no option. We must do it. I’ll say that and then follow that up with, but once you’re here and you’re established, what we continue to do is just by being and surviving. And that’s thanks to the structure that Verdery built in order to sustain this organization. Because in sustaining, you are calling attention to everyone how important this mission is, how important the culture is. And so that’s a big part of that.
And then I will follow that up with, representation matters, as we’ve heard said. And in Ballet Hispánico, we look at representation in this beautiful rainbow of art. Whether it’s the company doing a new work, whether we are nurturing new artists, telling their stories, whether it’s the school where they’re learning indigenous Latin forms, whether they’re learning Spanish dance, or whether it’s our CAP, which is our engagement arm—whether we’re going into a community or a school and teaching non-Latinx people the value, the love, the care, the beauty that is in this, that is like a beautiful rainbow or a fan when you open it up, and that’s how we sustain that. We’re looking at it across organizationally. We can serve all these purposes, to have people who are both Latinx and non-Latinx come in and explore and have a cultural dialogue.
Verdery Roosevelt:
And once you’ve been engaged with Ballet Hispánico in whatever role, you’re going to carry that forward with you. I can’t tell you how many people of every age, color, size, if you mention Ballet Hispánico, suddenly you are in a community immediately, because you are part of coming through Ballet Hispánico. And I’m so proud of that. It’s one of those things that fills my life with joy. And you keep it in your life because it brings such value to the world and you treasure it.
Margaret Fuhrer:
I wanted to talk a little about advocacy too, because—well, artists have always been advocates. It does seem like the intersections between artistry and advocacy have become more evident and more frequent recently. But how has advocacy informed Ballet Hispánico’s work from the beginning—Verdery, maybe you can speak to that—and then, how does it continue to inform the organization’s work now?
Verdery Roosevelt:
It wasn’t easy in those early days trying to get the attention of donors, for example. Sometimes I think it was my name that opened the door to actually get a meeting with someone, which is a terrible thing to say. But of course once Tina got in, they would ask a question and she would stand up and dance the answer. How can you resist that? I think the world has gotten a little better. I won’t say it’s gotten a lot better because it hasn’t. But I think you can’t take no for an answer, you keep pushing. Eduardo is now all over the world, a representative of Ballet Hispanico and of Latinx cultures and the future.
Eduardo Vilaro:
Thanks Verdery. I just want to uplift and embrace your allyship, and what you said is so important for today, that you recognize something like, “Well they were listening to me first”—and then that you gave that platform to Tina. That’s to me, gold, magic. And I think it’s such an example for the world. So thank you.
Verdery Roosevelt:
You’re quite welcome.
Eduardo Vilaro:
Advocacy is interesting to me. There’s so many aspects of advocacy, but I’ll just put it… Right now, thought leadership is very important for me and for this organization. And as we move forward, there is an aspect of that in everything we do. And that is the advocacy, and how we are putting our voices to also deconstruct old ways of thinking of Latinx dance and reconstruct a new way of speaking and of sharing that it’s not over. As Verdery said, there’s some things that are much better. We tend to live in a bubble in New York City. And until you go out there and you face even more microaggressions, or macro sometimes, you don’t understand that there’s still a lot of work to do.
And so the advocacy that we live on a daily basis at Ballet Hispanico is about one, uplifting the voices of Latinx artists, and two, uplifting our stories, and three, coming together and bringing people together, unifying people around an art form and the beauty of these artists in order to then start cracking the conversations. Because if Ballet Hispánico is in town, you know there’s going to be a talk back after the show, and I’m not holding back. And we’re going to talk truths and we’re going to say why this choreographer decided to do.
And I think I’m just going to finish up by saying that it’s in the work as well. So the choreographers that you’re choosing, and what you’re asking them to say or represent, is also extremely important for us. That it’s not representative of a tradition or a folklore, but that it is representative of a choreographic vision for the culture.
Margaret Fuhrer:
What do you see as the largest challenges facing Latinx dance artists in the United States today? This is a dissertation prompt, I know.
Eduardo Vilaro:
It is a dissertation. For me, one of the big issues right now is getting into the equity conversation. In America, the equity thing is a Black and white conversation. And Latinx people find themselves invisibilized by the conversation. We want to be part of this conversation and be included. We are brown also. And I think that there are other, there are Asian Americans, there are this, and it feels like the media and the country focuses on one aspect. Which really, please hear me out, that needs a lot of focus, a lot. But we can’t just leave everybody off. That’s the way we used to work before. “Oh, let’s just work on this right now and then we’ll try to work on that.” How do we work as, the same way Tina worked and Arthur Mitchell and Ailey and they got their friends and they brought everybody together and we have to make work and we have to do that. I think that’s one of our largest challenges right now.
I know that these kinds of conversations are very delicate, and I don’t want to take anything away from anyone, like I said. I just think we’re very polarized. And when you’re in a polarized society, then someone loses, because you’re just looking at the edges.
Verdery Roosevelt:
I see it in the individuals, that a number of former dancers and students that have come out of Tina’s training and her company and her school and are making their own careers in the dance world—to have the stamina to keep trying to move forward with your career, and to keep building on it, and to find that niche or that crack that you can somehow get through to get to the next level. It takes a stamina that I can’t even fathom. And they’re doing it, they’re doing it successfully, they are intrepid, they are powerful in their voices. And if there’s anything I can do to support them, I will do that. Because it’s really one by one that you start to whack away at that giant wall.
Margaret Fuhrer:
So I’ll end with another enormous question, but a more hopeful one this time. What makes you excited about the future—the future of Ballet Hispánico, of the Latinx dance community more broadly, and of the dance community in general?
Verdery Roosevelt:
I have to take this first. What brings me hope and excitement is just simply going to see what Ballet Hispánico is doing. To go to their first presented engagement doing the New York season, and the house is packed and the piece is phenomenal and the dancers are completely off the charts amazing, and the piece finishes and you’re in tears and the whole house is standing and cheering and you just say, “Oh, we’ve gotten here.” And then that, who’d a thunk? And then you just know that Eduardo is taking it forward, and I have such confidence in that.
And then to go to the open house and see these children—some of them are wearing dance costumes that were created, I don’t even want to go back how far, but it’s the creativity and the encouragement and the training and getting things done with the resources you have at hand for children. And I just sat there and thought, “This cannot get any better.” Just to see that ability to flourish and grow and bring such beauty and excitement into the community, into these children, into the dance world, I’ll just be floating on that into the future for as long as I live.
Eduardo Vilaro:
That’s beautiful.
Verdery Roosevelt:
It’s the real thing.
Eduardo Vilaro:
Thank you, Verdery. For me, what excites me about the future of Ballet Hispánico is that we’ve laid, all of us, Verdery and myself, we’ve laid some really strong foundations on Tina’s vision, and it’s going to be here for a long time. And that is an exciting thing.
The other exciting thing is I’m, while I have issues with these new generations, these new kids, as I say to them [laughter], about dance and artistry, I am so moved by the way they’re galvanized and how they take on things. And when I tell them, “We are advocates.” They’re like, “I’m in. What’s the advocacy we’re doing today?”
That they’re not afraid. They walk with me into incarcerated spaces to teach dance. That this new generation is not scared of advocacy, of self care and of also identity, self-identity, realizing who they are, and are not afraid to say, “This is who I am.” And it just wells my heart when a dancer says, “I chose to be in this company because this company represents who I am. This is a mirror that I hold up to myself on a daily basis.” And that’s why I know what was started here, the values that continue to live here and that are moving on even stronger into the future.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Oh, that’s kind of a great place to end. Eduardo and Verdery, thank you so much for making the time. I know your schedules are totally bananas, so I really appreciate it. And thank you for all the important work you’re doing in the field.
Eduardo Vilaro:
Well, thank you.
Verdery Roosevelt:
Thank you, Margaret. Yeah.
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One more huge thank-you to Eduardo and Verdery. In the show notes, we have information about Ballet Hispánico’s upcoming performances of Doña Perón at The Kennedy Center; the company will be there from November 30th to December 3rd. And if you’re not in the D.C. area, don’t worry, because Ballet Hispáncio is going to be on tour nearly every weekend from February through early June, so odds are good they’re coming to a city near you soon. We’ve got information about their tour schedule in the show notes, too.
Thanks so much to all of you for listening. We’ll be back next Thursday with a headline rundown episode, recapping all the top dance news stories. Until then, keep learning, keep advocating, and keep dancing.