Ballet Hispánico Celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month with A La Calle Block Party
Company:
Ballet Hispánico
Ballet Hispánico will celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with the anticipated return of its A La Calle Block Party. The fourth edition of the popular community event will take place on Sunday, September 26, from noon-4:00pm. This year's event will be streamed for free for audiences nationwide to enjoy the festivities. More programming will be announced in the coming weeks. For more information, please visit www.ballethispanico.org.
"As the nation's largest Latinx dance organization and one of America's cultural treasures, celebrating our Latinidad and providing Latinx and BIPOC artists and communities with a stage to show their artistry and a platform for their voices to be heard, is at the core of what we do each and every day," said Eduardo Vilaro, Artistic Director & CEO of Ballet Hispánico. "Hispanic Heritage Month enables us to showcase our heritage with great pride, highlighting the many contributions our vibrant community and artists have made and continue to make to this country."
As it has done in previous years, Ballet Hispánico will take over West 89th Street (between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues), its home for 50 years. The event will include performances by the internationally renowned Company and prestigious School of Dance and Community Arts Partnerships students.
The Company will perform two numbers, a solo from Arabesque by Vicente Nebrada and an excerpt from 18+1 by Gustavo Ramírez Sansano.
Students from the School of Dance will also take to the stage and perform select numbers, including Flamenco Work and Ritmo y Ruido, from the 50th Anniversary Gala, and Salsa Work by Milteri Tucker. The newly formed Pa'lante Scholars will perform an excerpt from Bury Me Standing.
New to the block party this year and as part of its commitment to champion and amplify voices within its community, Ballet Hispánico will be inviting select Latinx dance companies from around New York City to perform as guest artists, including Bombazo Dance Company and Calpulli Mexican Dance Company as well as others, to be announced in the near future.
Additionally, The School of Dance will offer free dance classes at the event.
The Ballet Hispánico 2021 A La Calle Block Party is made possible by Con Edison of New York and Popular Bank. Major support is provided by Mutual of America.
About Ballet Hispánico
For fifty years Ballet Hispánico has been the leading voice intersecting artistic excellence and advocacy and is now the largest Latinx cultural organization in the United States and one of America's Cultural Treasures. Ballet Hispánico brings communities together to celebrate and explore Latino cultures through innovative dance productions, transformative dance training, and enduring community engagement experiences. National Medal of Arts recipient Tina Ramirez founded Ballet Hispánico in 1970, at the height of the post-war civil rights movements. From its inception Ballet Hispánico focused on providing a haven for Black and Brown Latinx youth and families seeking artistic place and cultural sanctuary. By providing the space for Latinx dance and dancers to flourish, Ballet Hispánico uplifted marginalized emerging and working artists, which combined with the training, authenticity of voice, and power of representation, fueled the organization's roots and trajectory. In 2009, Ballet Hispánico welcomed Eduardo Vilaro as its Artistic Director, ushering in a new era by inserting fresh energy to the company's founding values and leading Ballet Hispánico into an artistically vibrant future. Today, Ballet Hispánico's New York City headquarters house a School of Dance and state-of-the-art dance studios for its programs and the arts community. From its grassroots origins as a dance school and community-based Ballet Hispánico provides the physical home and cultural heart for Latinx dance in the United States. Ballet Hispánico has developed a robust public presence across its three main programs: its Company, School of Dance, and Community Arts Partnerships. Through its exemplary artistry, distinguished training program, and deep-rooted community engagement efforts Ballet Hispánico champions and amplifies underrepresented voices. For fifty years Ballet Hispánico has provided a place of honor for the omitted, overlooked, and oppressed, and has stood as a catalyst for social change. As it looks to the next fifty years and beyond, Ballet Hispánico seeks to empower, and give agency to, the Latinx experience and those individuals within it.
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