Jorge Esquivel Estrada

Cuban dancer and choreographer.

He was born in La Habana in 1950. From a very humble family with several siblings, Jorge Esquivel had to be sent to the orphanage Casa de Beneficencia y Maternidad de La Habana to complete his primary studies.

With the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, as these institutions came under the Revolutionary Government, Esquivel was transferred in October 1961 to Hogar Granma in Ceiba del Agua and there he was discovered by the founders of Cuban ballet and integrated into the Provincial Ballet School of La Habana that same year, where he began his studies with Fernando Alonso, Ana Leontieva, Michel Gurov, and Joaquín Banegas.

Between 1966 and 1968 he continued his studies with Azari Plisetsky and his previous teachers at the National School of Art, in the specialty of Ballet, where he also acquired knowledge of theater, historical dances, fencing, and folklore.

Before completing his studies, Esquivel had already joined the Ballet Nacional de Cuba as an apprentice and had made his first tour to Mexico to participate in the cultural olympiad that followed the sports competition held that year in Aztec lands.

Jorge Esquivel's rise in the Ballet Nacional de Cuba was vertiginous given his excellent physical and artistic conditions for dance: from the corps de ballet category he assumed upon entry, he was promoted in 1969 to soloist and in 1972 to principal dancer, which allowed him to assume major roles in world and Cuban ballet at a very young age.

His great quality as a dancer allowed him to partner with the historic prima ballerinas of the Ballet Nacional de Cuba, Loipa Araújo, Aurora Bosch, Josefina Méndez, and Mirta Plá, as well as with other prima donnas and soloists of the company. But already in 1970, when Cuban choreographer based in Belgium Jorge Lefebre made the Cuban premiere of his ballet Oedipus Rex, Jorge Esquivel –who assumed the titular role– began a transcendent era for Cuban, Latin American, and world ballet, by joining as an artistic partnership with prima ballerina assoluta and current General Director of the Ballet Nacional de Cuba, Alicia Alonso.

The Alonso-Esquivel partnership became one of the most famous duos in world ballet and made history in works such as Giselle, Carmen, and the pas de deux from Swan Lake, La péri, Robert the Devil, Song for the Strange Flower, among a very extensive repertory that Alicia Alonso performed for more than 15 years.

Invited to dance at international galas, Esquivel accompanied Alonso on stages such as the Metropolitan Opera House theaters in New York, the Opera and des Champs Elysees in Paris, the Scala in Milan, as well as famous venues in Japan, Canada, Mexico, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal, Great Britain, Finland, Holland, Spain, Russia, Germany, Hungary, Greece, Turkey, and all of Latin America.

During his nearly 20 years with the Ballet Nacional de Cuba, Jorge Esquivel's career earned various awards both in international competitions and from Cuban and international authorities, including the Distinction for National Culture, and bronze (1970) and silver (1968) medals in Varna, Bulgaria.

During this period, he was also able to partner with important international ballerinas such as Italian Carla Fracci (with whom he premiered Alicia Alonso's version of Sleeping Beauty at the Scala in Milan), Americans Cynthia Gregory and Eleonor d'Antuono, German Eva Evdokímova, and French Ghislaine Thesmar, among others.

In 1984 he debuted as a choreographer with the solo Daydream.

Following a performance of Sleeping Beauty, in which he played the character of Prince Desirée alongside Josefina Méndez at the Gran Teatro de La Habana in April 1986, Jorge Esquivel left the Ballet Nacional de Cuba to begin a wandering career that led him to join Ballet Teatro de La Habana directed by Caridad Martínez, the Ballet de Camagüey under the direction of his teacher Fernando Alonso, and Danza Contemporánea de Cuba, almost always as a guest artist, in addition to performing special appearances in theaters and plazas, such as a memorable interpretation of the male version of Maurice Béjart's Bolero on the steps of the University of La Habana with a large outdoor attendance.

He moved to Italy where he worked as a teacher at Renato Greco's academy, with the Arena di Verona company and the Ballet Reggio Emilia. He danced again with Italian star Carla Fracci in her company, as well as with Margarita Parrilla and her group in Rome and other Italian cities. He also danced with the Regional Ballet of Mantua, where he received excellent reviews from specialized critics for his performances.

He returned to Cuba to participate in the International Dance Festival in Camagüey in December 1991. After the event concluded, he returned to Italy in 1992.

He emigrated to the United States in 1993, where he was hired as a principal dancer with San Francisco Ballet, a company in which he performed soloist roles in the great classics and new choreographic creations, both by its director Helgi Thomasson and by other American and international choreographers.

With this company he began working as a ballet master and also as an instructor at the San Francisco Ballet School, work he continues to do at the present time, in addition to occasionally appearing with the company performing character roles.

During his career with the Ballet Nacional de Cuba, Jorge Esquivel performed various roles. As a member of the corps de ballet, between 1967 and 1968, he performed in The Sprite by Alberto Alonso, The Vanguard by Azari Plisetsky, Amatorias by Jorge García, and Calaucán by Chilean Patricio Bunster. From 1969 onward, already as a soloist, he performed in A Concert in Black and White by Puerto Rican José Parés, Space and Movement by Alberto Alonso, Alicia Alonso's versions of Swan Lake, Coppélia, Giselle, La fille mal gardée; the pas de deux Classique, Don Quixote, Raymonda, Theme and Variations; as well as works from Mikhail Fokine's repertory such as Les Sylphides and Prince Igor, George Balanchine's Apollo, Maurice Béjart's Bhakti and Webern opus 5, or Variations for Four by Anton Dolin.

As artistic partner to Alicia Alonso he performed in the world premieres of We'll See Each Other Last Night Margaret, Young Pine Trees, Remembrance, The Death of Cleopatra, Robert the Devil, The Bloody Crown, Lucretia Borgia, The Diva, Wuthering Heights, Medea, Tribute to José White, Daydream, The Golden Arrow, Phaedra, Salome, Yagruma, in addition to the aforementioned ones. They also performed the Cuban premiere of In the Night by choreographer Jerome Robbins.

From the Cuban company's repertory he performed Diogenes Before the Barrel, To Santiago, Conjugation, Vital Song, Paso a Tres, First Concert, The Poem of Fire, and Cecilia Valdés in their world premieres. To this should be added the world premiere of Genesis, choreographed by Alicia Alonso, as well as the inclusion of Bach X 11 = 4 X A, Plasmasis, Majísimo, among other works from the Ballet Nacional de Cuba.

Source: En Caribe.org