BIOGRAPHY

Ana G. Delgado Cruz

   Started dancing at age four in Puerto Rico, San Juan, Ana was inspired by stories from her creative movement teacher. Those stories involved her dancing in pointe shoes alongside elephants at the local circus. This ignited her curiosity and her training quickly progressed from school classes to a ballet conservatory in the city. There she performed various ballets and started training in character dance. She started dancing cultural dances of the island, bomba and plena, which gave her freedom from ballet. In search of new opportunities she moved from the ballet conservatory to Andanza. A local contemporary company and school that focused on African influenced contemporary dance. As she started excelling through the years, she joined Andanza’s second company where she would have more professional opportunities outside the dance academy. In her senior year of high school she competed in a Puerto Rico Classical Dance Competition (PRCD) and received scholarships for universities and summer programs for that year. At the time the pandemic shut down everything making her do Ballet Hispanico Choreo Lab +18 online and start her university studies in her local school, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, majoring in journalism. Even though she had a passion for writing, continuing higher education in dance was more enticing. Soon after, a year passed and she started searching for dance school outside the island and she came across Boston Conservatory at Berklee, a contemporary dance program. After researching the school and going through the audition period, she promptly received an acceptance letter alongside scholarships to attend the conservatory. She moved to Boston and embarked on her journey to acquire a contemporary dance BFA.

   

   Some of the choreographers she has worked with since starting higher education are, Laila J. Franklin,MariaBauman,DougVerone,MiraGöksel, KurtDouglas,AndreaMuñiz,JoeGonzales, Naoko Brown, Maya Orchin, Stefanie Nelson, Maurya Kerr, Lila Kushner , Alonzo King, Sidi Camara, among other influential artists. Since freshman year she has choreographed for various musicians such as, Mary Ogbonné and Serena Jade, alongside solos, duets and ensemble pieces in and out of the conservatory. After her second year she was able to perform in Sadler Wells Theater for a reenactment of the story, Black Beauty and attend Dance Italia in Tuscany, Italy where she experienced intensive creative process and techniques such as Flying Through Passing Low. These new experiences helped her creative voice grow when writing poetry and making dance pieces. In her junior year she auditioned and joined Jo-Mé Dance Company in Jamaica Plain, while still being a full time student at the conservatory and producing new works such as, Mujeres, Playa Baby, Let’s Lie and more. She started assisting Prof. Sidi Camara in his West African Dance class at the conservatory. Which has influenced her greatly and formed part of her movement vocabulary when creating new work. As she finishes her junior year at the conservatory, she is focusing on attending dance festivals in Boston, Rhode Island and Puerto Rico as a choreographer.