BIOGRAPHY
Ana G. Delgado Cruz
Started dancing at age four in Puerto Rico, San Juan, Ana’s imagination was sparked by the stories that her creative movement teacher would tell her with grand images such as ballerinas in pointe shoes dancing alongside elephants at the local circus. With these visions, Ana had an intense vigor for her training and quickly progressed from school classes to a ballet conservatory in the city.
There she performed various ballets and trained in character dance. In her teens she started attending improvisation jams to find freedom in movement away from ballet technique. With a desire to expand her knowledge, she left the conservatory and began dancing at Andaza Dance Academy that specialized in African influenced contemporary dance. After six years, she joined their second company and gained professional dance experience.
In senior year of high school, she competed in the Puerto Rico Classical Dance Competition (PRCD) and received scholarships for universities and summer programs. During the pandemic, Ana continued to train through the Ballet Hispanico Choreo Lab +18 online, and began her university studies at Universidad de Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, majoring in journalism. In 2021, Ana moved to pursue a Contemporary Dance BFA at the Boston Conservatory, where she was honored to receive the Talent and Federal Pell scholarships.
While she pursued her degree, she worked with choreographers: Andrea Miller, Laila J. Franklin, Maria Bauman, Doug Verone, Mira Göksel, Kurt Douglas, Andrea Muñiz, Joe Gonzales, Maya Orchin, Stefanie Nelson, Alonzo King, Sidi Camara, among other influential artists. Since her freshman year she has choreographed solos, duets and ensemble pieces in and out of the conservatory, as well as music videos for recording artists.
During Summer 2023, she performed a reenactment of the story, Black Beauty at the renowned Sadler Wells Theater, and she attended Dance Italia in Tuscany, Italy, where she was introduced to Flying Through Passing Low Technique, which had a tremendous impact on her artistry.
Within two years at the Conservatory, she performed in more than a dozen projects in the Boston area. In her junior year, she joined Jo-Mé Dance Company. Simultaneously, she was the Assistant Teacher for Prof. Sidi Camara West African Dance class. His mentorship deeply informed her movement vocabulary when creating new works. She produced over eight new works including, Mujeres, Playa Baby, and Let’s Lie. In 2024 was chosen to produce a new work in three weeks as an Emerging Choreographer for the Choreography Project at Providence. This piece, DunDun, was later restaged with the dance students at Salve Regina University.
During her time at the conservatory she has continued her academic education, focusing on poetry, while also being an active member of her college poetry club. This medium started to take part of her pieces and spoke of migration, societal isolation, cultural exchange and language barriers that she had seen or felt in her experience in the states. Now in 2025 she is excited to complete her BFA in Contemporary Dance and start a new residency with Urbanity X to make a new piece inspired by Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series.
