Ballets de San Juan (BSJ) was founded in 1954 by Ana García and Gilda Navarra in order to advance dance in Puerto Rico. To this end, they focused on the development of dancers, choreographers and dance teachers. Their intention was also to promote Puerto Rican audiences' love of classical dance. For 68 years, BSJ has incorporated a diverse range of artists into its cultural project, including composers, visual artists, actors, directors and designers of the performing arts.
BSJ is the oldest cultural institution in Puerto Rico, after Pro Arte Musical and the Ateneo Puertorriqueño. Its first performance was held on November 12, 1954 at the Theater of the University of Puerto Rico and it has operated continuously since then.
Ballets de San Juan dancersFlamboyan Arts Fund
Its group of artists, better known as the Compañía de Ballets de San Juan, is the offshoot of the Escuela de Ballets de San Juan, founded in 1951. Today it is the oldest operating dance school in Puerto Rico.
The BSJ School trains boys and girls from the age of two. Its program spans different levels, providing excellence in education to the community in general, as well as to those whose aim is to prepare professionally for a career as a dancer, teacher, or choreographer.
It counts among its achievements a vast number of graduates who are today acclaimed as professional dancers in both local and international companies. It also funds a scholarship program designed to support low-income students.
This program includes a successful Men's Workshop to stimulate the development of male dancers.
BSJ is one of the few companies in Latin America to receive the endorsement of the Balanchine Trust to stage neoclassical ballet classics. It has performed about 20 ballets by the distinguished choreographer George Balanchine.
Furthermore, it has introduced to local audiences great ballet figures such as Alicia Alonso, Fernando Bujones, Rudolf Nureyev, Ivan Nagy, Roges Fernández, Melissa Hayden, Jorge Esquivel, Verónica Tenant, Jacques d'Amboise and Margot Fonteyn, among others.
Among the many achievements of BSJ, is the development of choreographies based on our culture and heritage, including original music commissioned to contemporary Puerto Rican composers. It has created a Puerto Rican repertoire, examples of which are Las brujas de Loíza, La cucarachita Martina, When women, Julia de Burgos, and El contemplado. Puerto Rican popular music created by composers such as Juan Morell Campos, Rafael Hernández, Manuel Jiménez “Canario”, Bobby Capó, Haciendo Punto en Otro Son and Plenéalo has been integrated into the language of dance.
Today Ballets de San Juan continues to bolster our dance tradition with the aesthetic ideas of a new generation of outstanding Puerto Rican artists in this field.
Ana María García, founder of Ballets de San JuanFlamboyan Arts Fund
Our founder, Ana María García Daubón was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico. Her parents were Esteban García and Ángeles Daubón. After seeing the legendary dancer Anna Pavlova dance on a Puerto Rican stage, doña Ángeles decided that her daughters would take dance classes.
Thus, Ana García began dance classes under the tutelage of Lotti Tischer at the early age of eight.
During her training, Ana strengthened her experience by also taking Spanish dance classes with Paquita Hettinger and attending summer camps in New York.
Upon getting her high school diploma from the Colegio Puertorriqueño de Niñas, Ana, along with her sister Gilda and her mother Ángeles, moved to New York to continue dance studies at the School of American Ballet, under the direction of the eminent figure on universal ballet, George Balanchine.
During this time, Ana was a witness and participant in the birth of the Ballet Society. This group would later become what we today know as the New York City Ballet, an instrumental company for the development of contemporary ballet in the Americas and the world.
Ana María García, founder of Ballets de San JuanFlamboyan Arts Fund
After five years under the tutelage of George Balanchine, Ana García moved to Cuba to dance with the Alicia Alonso Ballet, which would later become the National Ballet of Cuba.
With the Alicia Alonso Ballet, Ana danced in innumerable theaters in Central and South America, performing an extensive classical repertoire.
In 1951, after her return to Puerto Rico, Ana García and her sister Gilda Navarra, with the support of Ricardo Alegría, founded the Ballets de San Juan school with the mission of developing Puerto Rican dancers.
Ballets de San Juan, the oldest running ballet school and company in Puerto RicoFlamboyan Arts Fund
Today most dance professionals in Puerto Rico have been, in one way or another, influenced by the teachings of Ana García. Figures connected to dance such as José Parés, Ramón Molina, Ramón Segarra, Petra Bravo, Juan Anduze, Alma Concepción, Vanesa Ortiz, Miguel Campanería, María Teresa del Real, Ana María Castañón, Vanessa Vachier, Roberto Rodríguez, María Carrera and a host of personalities of the cultural endeavor in the island and abroad have been disciples and co-workers of this pioneer of dance in Puerto Rico.
Ballets de San Juan
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