Artistic Director & CEO: Eduardo Vilaro | Founder: Tina Ramirez | Chair, Board of Directors: Kate Lear
Eduardo Vilaro es el Director Artístico y CEO de Ballet Hispánico (BH). Fue nombrado Director Artístico de BH en 2009, convirtiéndose en la segunda persona al frente de la compañía desde su fundación en 1970, y en 2015 también fue nombrado Consejero Delegado. Vilaro ha infundido el legado del Ballet Hispánico con una marca audaz de danza contemporánea que refleja el cambiante panorama cultural de Estados Unidos.

Su filosofía de la danza se deriva de una creencia básica en el poder de las artes para cambiar vidas, reflejar e impactar la cultura y fortalecer la comunidad. Él considera que la danza es un lenguaje no verbal liberador a través del cual los estudiantes, bailarines y audiencias de todos los ámbitos y diversos orígenes pueden iniciar conversaciones continuas sobre las artes, la expresión, la identidad y el significado de comunidad.

Born in Cuba and raised in New York from the age of six, Mr. Vilaro’s own choreography is devoted to capturing the Latin American experience in its totality and diversity, and through its intersectionality with other diasporas. His works are catalysts for new dialogues about what it means to be an American. He has created more than 40 ballets with commissions that include the Ravinia Festival, the Chicago Sinfonietta, the Grant Park Festival, the Lexington Ballet and the Chicago Symphony.

A Ballet Hispánico dancer and educator from 1988 to 1996, he left New York, earned a master’s in interdisciplinary arts at Columbia College Chicago and then embarked on his own act of advocacy with a ten-year record of achievement as Founder and Artistic Director of Luna Negra Dance Theater in Chicago.

The recipient of numerous awards and accolades, Mr. Vilaro received the Ruth Page Award for choreography in 2001; was inducted into the Bronx Walk of Fame in 2016; and was awarded HOMBRE Magazine’s 2017 Arts & Culture Trailblazer of the Year. In 2019, he received the West Side Spirit’s WESTY Award, was honored by WNET for his contributions to the arts and was the recipient of the James W. Dodge Foreign Language Advocate Award. In August 2020, City & State Magazine included Mr. Vilaro in the inaugural Power of Diversity: Latin 100 list. In January 2021, Mr. Vilaro was recognized with a Compassionate Leaders Award, given to leaders who are courageous, contemplative, collaborative, and care about the world they will leave behind. He is a well-respected speaker on such topics as diversity, equity, and inclusion in the arts, as well as on the merits of the intersectionality of cultures and the importance of nurturing and building Latinx leaders.

For more information about Ballet Hispanico, please visit ballethispanico.org