Ballet Hispánico announces Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage Performance
Company:
Ballet Hispánico
Ballet Hispánico is proud to announce their return to Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage on Thursday, August 7, 2025 at 8pm (doors open at 7pm) at Rumsey Playfield, Central Park, NYC. Admission is free and details are available at cityparksfoundation.org/events/ballet-hispanico.
Ballet Hispánico is a leading force in New York’s contemporary dance scene, distinguished by its powerful dancers and daring, original works. The company blends technical precision with inventive storytelling, offering performances that are both viscerally compelling and artistically rigorous – work that speaks not just to the moment, but to the future of dance. Led by Artistic Director & CEO Eduardo Vilaro, the organization has been heralded by the Ford Foundation as one of America’s Cultural Treasures. “Performances by the Ballet Hispánico dancers are always vibrant and richly textured.” (The New York Times).
Program:
House of Mad’moiselle
House of Mad’moiselle, by internationally acclaimed choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, is a wild romp through the layered symbols of Latin American femininity. It revels in the drama, elegance, and defiance of iconic women who blur the lines between myth and memory.
Sombrerisimo (excerpt)
Inspired by the surrealist world of Belgian painter René Magritte, famous for his paintings of men in bowler hats, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Sombrerísimo references the iconic sombreros (hats) found throughout the world that help to represent culture. Originally choreographed for an all-male cast, Sombrerísimo has evolved into a work that can also be performed by an all-female or mixed-gender cast.
Tango Vitrola (excerpt)
Alejandro Cervera’s Tango Vitrola conjures a metaphysical space that highlights the struggle between men and women through simple yet poetic patterns.
Ballet Hispánico: A Legacy of Artistic Excellence
Ballet Hispánico is the nation’s leading Hispanic/Latine dance company and the largest cultural institution of its kind in the United States. For over five decades, it has been a beacon of artistic excellence, celebrated for its bold repertory and exceptional training programs. The Company has commissioned over 100 original works, performed on the world’s most prestigious stages, and inspired generations through performances, education, and community engagement. Recognized as one of America’s Cultural Treasures by the Ford Foundation, Ballet Hispánico continues to redefine what it means to be an American dance company.
Eduardo Vilaro is the Artistic Director & CEO of Ballet Hispánico. He was named the Artistic Director in 2009, becoming only the second person to head the company since its founding in 1970. In 2015 was also named Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Vilaro has infused Ballet Hispánico’s legacy with a bold brand of contemporary dance that reflects America’s changing cultural landscape. Mr. Vilaro’s philosophy of dance stems from a basic belief in the power of the arts to change lives, reflect and impact culture, and strengthen community. He considers dance to be a liberating, non-verbal language through which students, dancers, and audiences of all walks of life and diverse backgrounds, can initiate ongoing conversations about the arts, expression, identity, and the meaning of community.
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 50 ballets with commissions that include the Ravinia Festival, the Chicago Sinfonietta, the Grant Park Festival, the Lexington Ballet, Chicago Symphony, Muse/ique and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
A Ballet Hispánico dancer and educator from 1988 to 1996, he 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 Magazineincluded 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.
In May of 2024 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate from his alma mater, Adelphi University, and was recognized by Crain's New York Business as a Notable Latino Leader and Notable Leader in Philanthropy.
About City Parks Foundation
At City Parks Foundation, we are dedicated to invigorating and transforming parks into dynamic, vibrant centers of urban life through sports, arts, community building and education programs for all New Yorkers. Our programs -- located in more than 350 parks, recreation centers and public schools across New York City -- reach over 285,000 people each year. Our ethos is simple: thriving parks mean thriving communities.
About SummerStage
Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage is one of New York’s most beloved, broadly accessible, free outdoor performing arts festivals. SummerStage annually presents more than 80 free and benefit performances in Central Park and neighborhood parks throughout the five boroughs reaching more than 220,000 fans. With diverse artists and performances in genres that represent the cultural fabric of New York City ranging from jazz, hip-hop, Latin, and global to indie and contemporary dance, SummerStage fills a vital niche in our City’s summer arts festival landscape. Since its inception nearly 40 years ago, more than seven million people from New York City and around the world have enjoyed SummerStage.
