In 2026, Ballet Hispánico, one of America’s leading Latino dance companies, celebrates its 56th Season with the theme “MUJERES” Women in Motion.”
This seems to be the year when NYC celebrates women in dance. That’s important because in 20 years of studying culture, I learned that women are the guardians of human culture.
New York City Center
Ballet Hispánico “MUJERES: Women in Motion”
Contemporary Latin dance
Cassi Abranches and Marianela Boán world premieres 🇧🇷 🇨🇺 Stephanie Martinez company premiere 🇲🇽
Annabelle Lopez Ochoa repertory 🇨🇴
En Familia/Family Matinee for $25
New York City Center, Midtown
Apr 23-26, Thu-Sun
Apr 23, Thu, Gala Performance
$45+
Ballet Hispánico continues to present signature pieces like Lopez Ochoa’s flamenco-infused “Línea Recta,” but also expands the Latino dance canon with new works by international choreographers.
Cassi Abranches “Trança” World Premiere
Cassi Abranches is an international Brazilian choreographer who works in dance, film, and grand spectacles. She is known for her work with Grupo Corpo, where she is Resident Artist, especially their signature “Suíte Branca” (White Suite). Abranches choreographed the film “Rio, I Love You,” and the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. She also created “Black Sabbath – The Ballet,” the first true heavy metal ballet with Black Sabbath founder Tony Iommi. That’s an interesting twist.
“Trança” is Abranches’ world premiere about daily life in Brazil. English speakers may read the title as trance, but it means “braid.” This world premiere weaves together Brazilian culture, dance, and music. In the Latin context, those are defining elements of daily life. They are not separate like in the Northern European context. Culture, dance, and music are lived in, not just watched on stage like in New York. Look for the ways Abranches pulls you into the performance.
This theme also represents the integration of Indigenous, European, and African worlds (the spirit world too) which is modern Brazil.
Braids have special importance in the Afro-Latin world. They are not just fashion, but are potent symbols of heritage, resistance, and spirituality. When an African descendent wears braids, the way the world sees them changes. It’s quite a striking transition. Braids offer agency as markers of African heritage.
As resistance, they show that one has the strength to survive in two often antagonistic worlds, at the same time. In the Colonial Era, braids were used as communication like social media posts, including to hide maps to freedom, and to smuggle both gold and seeds.
In some African traditions (Indigenous traditions too), hairstyle represents one’s connection with the spiritual world. Like culture, music, and dance, the spirit world is more present in Latin life than in Northern European traditions. And art isn’t just decorative, it is a vessel for spiritual presence. So there’s a lot here.
I wrote this and then looked up Abranches’ portrait. OMG. She looks Portuguese. But this highlights the fact that whether we live, Black, white, brown, or whatever, our culture is a mix of Indigenous, European, and African traditions (Arab and Asian too). That’s what makes us Latin.
Marianela Boán “Reactor Antígona” World Premiere
This is another wonderful multicultural mix with specific meaning for our moment in history. It’s a story about whether to obey an unjust law or follow your conscience ~ even if that leads to your death.
Marianela Boán is an international Cuban choreographer who works in dance, theatre, television, and film around the world. She is a Guatemalan-born Cuban; raised in Mexico, Washington DC, and Algeria; who now lives and works in the Dominican Republic.
Boán is the founder of DanzAbierta in Cuba (1988-2003), BoanDanz Action in the USA (2005-2010), and built the Dominican national dance company: Compañía Nacional de Danza Contemporánea (2010-2020). She currently leads Marianela Boán Danza in Santo Domingo.
In the traditional Greek story, Sophocles’ “Antigone,” Antígona is the daughter who cared for the blinded Oedipus the King, the Oedipus of Freudian fame, until his death. Her two brothers were supposed to alternate the kingship every year. When one refused to turn over rule, the two brothers fought to the death. The new king declared one brother a hero, and the other to be left to rot in a field which would condemn his soul from entering heaven.
Respecting tradition and family ties, Antígona buried her brother. For this, the new king sentenced her to be buried alive, but she killed herself first. Her fiance, the king’s son, killed himself over this. His mother, the king’s wife killed herself over this. So the new king, by enforcing an unjust law, destroyed everything that he himself loved. Sounds like you-know-who’s dreams of destroying civilizations.
In “Reactor Antígona,” Boán reimagines the ancient Greek story “Antigona” in a Caribbean context, just as Dance Theatre of Harlem recontextualized “The Firebird” in the Caribbean (and made it more interesting).
She also places the conflict entirely inside Antígona’s own mind. Antígona struggles for her own agency against the constraints of the traditional role of women in patriarchal and formerly colonized societies.
This is a very real struggle. Colonizers kept the people down to exploit them. The colonizers are gone, but the social-political-economic systems they left create an impoverished mentality that can lead people to keep themselves down. It’s not easy to break that cycle.
Boán replaces the original story’s Greek Olympian gods with the Yoruba Orishas including Eleguá, the messenger of God who opens and closes the paths of your destiny. ¡Maferefún Eleguá!
That’s a natural switch because the Yoruba Orishas and the Olympian gods both have human characteristics and failings. But they are gods so even when they make mistakes, it works out in the end. The similarities between the Orishas and Olympians are striking, but are probably not related, but rather a proof that humans do similar things around the world and across time ~ because we are human.
The dance itself is not new, but Boán reworked it for the Ballet Hispánico dancers, so this version is a world premiere.
Stephanie Martinez “Otra Vez, Otra Vez, Otra Vez” Company Premiere
Stephanie Martinez is an American contemporary ballet choreographer from Chicago with a Mexican and Native American heritage who is known for her ability to blend different cultural references into something new and wonderful.
She danced with Luna Negra Dance Theater, Ballet Hispánico Artistic Director Eduardo Vilaro’s old company. He actually encouraged her to start her choreography career. In 2025, she won the Joffrey Ballet’s “Winning Works: Choreographers of Color” commission.
“Otra vez” means “again,” so this is “Again, again, again.” It’s inspired by Picasso’s Blue Period painting “The Old Guitarist” (1903-1904), wikipedia). Martinez wanted to tell the inner life of the old guitarist. She understood that even if he didn’t look like much in the moment, the old man had a rich life that formed him.
She set the piece to a Chavela Vargas ranchera. Vargas didn’t just sing rancheras, she lived them. In a way Vargas is the old guitarist. If you just saw her in her old age, you might not think much of her. She was a cute little old Mexican lady. But if you heard her sing, you couldn’t help but wonder what kind of life taught her to sing like that. And if you looked at her career, you would find this beautiful young woman who did all kinds of things that young Mexican women weren’t supposed to do in that time.
This is kind of what Ballet Hispánico is all about, building on our rich Latin heritage to do all kinds of things that you don’t expect. Go see them.