La Opinión

MIÉRCOLES 28 de junio de 2006, Los Angeles, California

Guardian of Balanchine Artistic Director of Miami City Ballet – a company where Latinos excel – Edward Villella has been able to preserve and reveal the legacy of his mentor

**Originally published in Spanish, translated into English**

By Debra Levine dance with unmasked passion all weekend at the Music Center’s Special to La Opinion the better. Based on this media Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. image and on his go-for-broke live Villella’s passion for dance and for An iconic photograph of Edward performance style, audiences the neo-classical works of his Villella caught mid-leap in George recall Villella as imposing and over mentor George Balanchine, for Balanchine’s The Prodigal Son ran scaled. whom he danced for two decades, in Life magazine in 1969. The are gloriously evident in the photo captures the intensity of the That’s why an encounter with the rambunctious troupe Villella has darkly handsome man who was soft-spoken, dapper, and built in Miami from the ground up. then the star male dancer of New diminutive gentleman leaves a Nothing was there; he started from York City Ballet. visitor slightly disoriented. “People a clean slate. Twenty years later a tell me all the time that I cannot troupe of 50 dancers, 80 ballets, In the photo, Villella’s arms are really be Edward Villella,” he says and an annual budget of $10 raised starkly, his eyes flash with a laugh. “I guess that on stage million has dance critics raising furiously, and the very veins on his I used every square inch that I their eyebrows—but in a good way. legs pop in taut musculature. Yes, had.” Since retiring as a dancer, America, real men can dance, this Villella has been artistic director of The consensus in the ballet world photo informs us—and when they Miami City Ballet performing this is that the 70-year old Villella has proven a fine caretaker of girls on a hot summer night. This Balanchine’s brilliant legacy of Villella coached the company’s ballet begot the Broadway musical twentieth-century choreography. stable of strong Latino dancers to On the Town , which in turn begot What was previously unspeakable, endure the fast, furious, and the Frank Sinatra/Gene Kelly film. and even unimaginable, is now entwining works of Balanchine. Villella, a graduate of the New York openly expressed: That the short, The dancers include Carlos Miguel Maritime Academy, says: “I too tough Italian guy from Long Island Guerra (Cuba via Chile), Luis was in the Navy, on leave, looking with blue collar breeding (his dad Serrano (Cuba via Venezuela), for action and for girls. This was a truck driver) has maintained Katia Carranza (Monterrey, delightful period piece rings the Balanchine oeuvre better than Mexico), Mary Carmen Catoya completely true.” tall, blonde, princely, Danish-born (Venezuela), Daymel Sanchez Peter Martins, who inherited the (Cuba via Mexico), Renato Nine Sinatra Songs (Twyla NYCB mantle upon Balanchine’s Penteado (Sao Paolo, Brazil). All Tharp, 1982) death in 1983. This is controversial are principals, or the highest level “Tharp is a brilliant woman,” says stuff if you care for great art … or of lead dancer in the company. Villella. “She told me that this for the little engine that could. series of pas de deux and group Miami City Ballet brings a dances represents the view of one Fifty beautifully trained dancers, chocolate box of ballet classics to single relationship. As a young many from Central and South Los Angeles, presented over two man, I dated to the sound of Frank America and Cuba, earn year- programs. Sinatra, so this suite of ballroom round salaries because of this dances is very special to me.” man. A repertory of amazing Dances at a Gathering (Jerome ballets is on view to the public, Robbins, 1969) Stravinsky Violin Concerto including works by Balanchine, A dance steeped in nostalgia for a (George Balanchine, 1972) Jerome Robbins, Paul Taylor, Jose lost (and re-found) sense of Set to Igor Stravinsky’s Violin Limon, and Twyla Tharp. Says community. Ten dancers move Concerto in D, twenty dancers Villella: “I am interested in master sumptuously to Chopin waltzes dressed in simple practice clothes works. Only.” and mazurkas. Robbins first claw their way through three created the ballet as a pas de deux movements of abstruse Coming from the predominantly for Edward Villella and Patricia choreography. “The choreographic Anglo world of ballet in the sixties McBride. “When Balanchine came invention in this piece is glorious; and seventies, Villella was mildly to view Robbins’s work in it’s witty, delightful, and surprising. shocked to arrive in Miami in 1984 progress,” Villella recalls, “he said The two pas de deux at the heart where, according to him, “English two words: Make more. That’s of the ballet are, I believe, is not the first language.” how DAAG grew into a major hour- Balanchine’s depiction of a huge Nonetheless, he began to long work.” marital spat,” says Villella. “This systematically tap the local talent: ballet operates at so many levels “I was aware that there were Western Symphony (George and Balanchine was a master of wonderfully trained Latin American Balanchine, 1954) them all,” he says. dancers,” he says. “Naturally I How would a French-speaking knew about the Cubans; I knew Russian expatriate with a love of Asked which job of his two- about the Venezuelans; and I Americana combine classical ballet pronged career—dancer or artistic learned about the Brazilians. tradition with the wild, Wild West? director—has been the most These dancers come from grand “When you remove the cowboy personally gratifying, Edward traditions of state-sponsored hats, string ties, and the bar girl’s Villella laughs. “I’d do a deal with theaters and training academies.” feather boa, what’s left is a great the devil if I could dance again!” Balanchinean symphonic work, but then says, “On the other hand, “Latinos bring a special physicality set to “Red River Valley,” says these ballets took such good care to ballet, similar to their instinctual Villella. of me for so many years. Now is excellence in baseball,” he says. my turn to care for them.” “They are famous for their passion Fancy Free (Jerome Robbins, and musicality. The passion must 1944) # be slightly tempered, however, to Robbins’s seminal first ballet succeed with the quick, sharp, bounces along a frothy score by thrusting attack of neo-classical Leonard Bernstein. Three sailors choreography,” he says. on leave in New York meet two