The Essence of Us: A Cuban Story

A World Premiere Film Directed by Nel Shelby featuring Malpaso Dance Company and Pedro Ruiz with a Live Performance by Ballet Hispánico New York

Malpaso Dance Company is one of contemporary dance’s great success stories — a Cuban ensemble known for extraordinary technical brilliance, musicality, and expressive power. Since its founding in 2012, Malpaso has become a vital force on the global stage, commissioning and performing works by Ronald K. Brown, Trey McIntyre, Aszure Barton, and more.

For the Harkness Mainstage Series Opening Night, the company was to appear in the world premiere of a new 92NY commission by Bessie Award winner Pedro Ruiz. Ruiz was to travel to Havana to create the work in close collaboration with Malpaso’s dancers before bringing it to New York.

Current visa barriers have made that impossible.

Rather than allow those barriers to end the project, 92NY continued to support the work. Filmmaker Nel Shelby traveled to Cuba to document Ruiz’s creative process with Malpaso. The resulting documentary offers an intimate portrait of a company whose artistry and resilience remain undiminished. Part documentary, part act of cultural solidarity, the film will premiere as part of our Opening Night.

Dance has always carried human connection across boundaries. At a time when artistic exchange across borders is increasingly fragile, this project affirms the necessity of sustaining international collaboration, especially when it is most difficult.

Joining our Opening Night in celebration and support of the project is Ballet Hispánico New York, the nation’s leading Latino dance company and the largest cultural institution of its kind in the United States. Recognized by the Ford Foundation as one of America’s Cultural Treasures, the organization stands as a major force in contemporary dance in New York City, elevating the voices of Latino artists across the nation and the world. Under the leadership of Artistic Director & CEO Eduardo Vilaro, Ballet Hispánico serves as a catalyst for imagination, redefining how contemporary dance is seen, heard, and understood through its repertory, training, and community programs.

Bringing their extraordinary artistry to the evening, the company performs a program honoring three Cuban and Cuban American choreographers whose work has made a profound mark on American dance. The performance features excerpts from Eduardo Vilaro’s Buscando a Juan (Looking for Juan); Marianela Boán’s Reactor Antígona (Antigone Reactor); and concludes with Pedro Ruiz’s Guajira.

This performance is part of the Harkness Mainstage Series’ Home season, exploring how dance maps the shifting terrain of home, identity, belonging, and the borders — visible and invisible — that shape us.