Long before there was a Miami City Ballet, Eddie Villella – he hadn’t yet graduated to “Edward” – had been recognized as the greatest male ballet dancer ever produced in America.  And his primacy hasn’t been challenged in the thirty-three years since his dancing career came to a premature end.

Villella showed that a tough brash kid out of Maritime College could turn into a major artist, and in doing so, changed the way men danced in America as well as the way male dancers were perceived.

Since 1986, he has focused his talent, his intelligence, and his energy on creating and maintaining a world-famous ballet company in South Florida.

In recognition of his achievements, President Clinton presented Mr. Villella with the 1997 National Medal of Arts.  Also in 1997, he was named a Kennedy Center Honoree, and was inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame.  Recently, Villella was elected as a Fellow into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. 

Edward Villella was born in Bayside, New York in 1936.  He entered the School of American Ballet at age ten but interrupted his dance training to complete academic studies.  A graduate of the New York Maritime Academy, he obtained a B.S. in marine transportation, lettered in baseball, and was a championship boxer.

He returned to SAB following graduation in 1955, and in 1957 was invited to join the New York City Ballet, where he was quickly promoted to Soloist (1958), and then to Principal Dancer (1960).  Mr. Villella was the original male lead in many important ballets in the New York City Ballet repertoire, among them Tarantella, the “Rubies” section of Jewels, Symphony in Three Movements, Dances at a Gathering, Watermill, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Oberon) Perhaps his most famous role was in the 1960 revival of Balanchine’s 1929 masterpiece, Prodigal Son.

Mr. Villella was the first American male dancer to perform with the Royal Danish Ballet, and the only American ever to be asked to dance an encore at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow.  He danced for President Kennedy’s inauguration and for Presidents Johnson, Nixon and Ford.  He was producer/director for the PBS series “Dance in America” for one and a-half years, and in 1975 won an Emmy Award for his CBS television production of “Harlequinade”.  He currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the School of American Ballet. The University of Pittsburgh Press reissued Villella’s 1992 autobiography, Prodigal Son: Dancing for Balanchine in a World of Pain and Magic, written with Larry Kaplan, in March 1998.

He is married to Linda Villella, the Director of Miami City Ballet School.

Nicholas T. Goldsborough recently joined Miami City Ballet and brings his extensive background in performing arts management, administration and fund-raising to the Company.  He is the former President of The Nicholas Goldsborough Group, LLC, a national strategic management consulting and fund-raising counsel.  Prior to that, he served as Managing Director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company (STC) in Washington, DC where he oversaw the construction and funding of the $89 million Harman Center for the Arts.  He was the Executive Vice President of the Music Center of Los Angeles County, overseeing the managing and planning of the Walt Disney Concert Hall capital campaign.  He established a presenting organization for dance and ballet that is now called “Gloria Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center.”  Mr. Goldsborough was also Deputy Director of University Development at UCLA, Los Angeles.  He was Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer of the New York City consulting firm C.W. Shaver and Co., which was instrumental in the building of the New Jersey Performing Arts.

Pamela Gardiner has been arts management executive for the past twenty-six years, her working partnership with Artistic Director Edward Villella began in 1984 at the Madison Festival of the Lakes, where Villella served as Artistic Director and she served as Executive Director.  Prior to that, she served as Assistant Dean of Student Academic Affairs in the College of Letters and Science at University of Wisconsin-Madison and as an Assistant Trust Officer at the Cleveland Trust Company.

Gardiner holds a B.A. degree in English Literature from University of Wisconsin-Madison; an M.A. degree in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University; and a J.D. degree from Case Western Reserve University.  Since 1993, she has served on the Board of Directors of the Performing Arts Foundation of Greater Miami.  She is a member of the Florida, Wisconsin, and Ohio Bars and of the Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Section of the Florida Bar Association.

A former soloist with New York City Ballet, Roma Sosenko works closely with Miami City Ballet dancers re-staging ballets and rehearsing them for each performance. During her career as a dancer, Sosenko danced roles in Jerome Robbins' The Four Seasons, The Goldberg Variations, and Interplay and George Balanchine's Ballo della Regina, Symphony in C, Chaconne, Coppelia, Jewels, and Scotch Symphony, among others. She has been seen on PBS in several productions: Balanchine's "L'Enfant et les Sortileges", "A Lincoln Center Special: A Tribute to George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins", "Live From Studio 8H", and also performed the role of Columbine in the film of George Balanchine's The Nutcracker™.

Joan Latham joined Miami City Ballet in 1992 as a dancer and now serves as ballet mistress, responsible for re-staging and rehearsing the dancers in much of the repertoire. She began her dance training with Damara Bennett at City Ballet School in her native city of San Francisco. She also studied at the Pacific Northwest Ballet School where she performed and toured with their company. As a soloist with Miami City Ballet she performed principal roles in such ballets as Balanchine’s Apollo, Symphony in C, Agon, and others. She was also featured in works by Paul Taylor, Twyla Tharp, and Edward Villella, as well as classics such as Swan Lake, Giselle and Coppelia.

Crista Villella practically grew up at Miami City Ballet. She trained at Miami City Ballet School, and was Marie in the Company's first production of George Balanchine's The Nutcracker™. Villella returned to MCB after graduating with a BFA in theater from NYU, and now works closely with the dancers rehearsing and preparing them for performances. She has served as the Ballet Mistress on many ballets including In the Upper Room, Nine Sinatra Songs, "THE FOX-TROT: Dancing in the Dark", and Liturgy, and she's the Children's Ballet Mistress for George Balanchine's The Nutcracker™. During the 2007-2008 Season, Crista worked closely with Twyla Tharp as the Ballet Mistress on the World Premiere of NIGHTSPOT.

 

Gary Sheldon returns to Miami City Ballet in his second season, following outstanding acclaim in his first -- "impressive debut" (South Florida Classical Review); "fine performance" (The Miami Herald). Maestro Sheldon is the winner of the 2010 American Prize in Orchestral Conducting, awarded for recorded performances conducting William Bolcom's music with clarinetist Richard Stolzman and the Lancaster Festival Orchestra on the Marquis Classics label.  He is former principal guest conductor for the San Francisco Ballet and conductor for Ballet Met in Columbus, Ohio.  He is former music director for the Marin Symphony in California, where he received the Distinguished Citizen Award from the Marin Cultural Center and Museum.  Sheldon has guest conducted major orchestras including the BBC Symphony -- London, Montreal Symphony, St. Louis Symphony and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.  He is currently Artistic Director of the Lancaster Festival in Ohio and Principal for the Festival at Sandpoint in Idaho.  He is a native of Bayshore, New York and a graduate of the Julliard School.

 

Haydée Morales was born in Puerto Rico and raised in New York City. Her career has enveloped both design and production for dance, Broadway, opera and film. Morales acquired her theatrical training at Barbara Matera Costume Shop in New York.

She joined Miami City Ballet in 1986. Since then, Morales has designed and overseen countless productions, including George Balanchine's The Nutcracker™ (in collaboration with Jose Varona), and Edward Villella's full-length ballet The Neighborhood Ballroom and Gismonti Brasil. Also, Lynne Taylor-Corbett's Kennedy Center Commission , The Mystery of the Dancing Princesses.  Morales has also recreated costumes from the original designs of many Balanchine ballets, as well as for dances by Paul Taylor, Twyla Tharp, Jerome Robbins, Christopher Wheeldon and Trey McIntyre.

Francisco Rennó is the winner of various piano competitions and has appeared as a soloist with orchestras in North and South America. He has given solo and chamber music recitals throughout two continents, including appearances at Carnegie Recital Hall and The Phillips Collection. For ballet performances, he has performed as a soloist with the symphony orchestras of Kansas City, St. Louis, Berkeley, Naples, Torino and The Kennedy Center.

Rennó was company pianist for the Kansas City Ballet from its inception in 1981 until he joined Miami City Ballet in 1999. He composed the music to Edward Villella's "THE WALTZ: Our Lady of Oblivion."

John Hall joined Miami City Ballet in 1995 and is responsible for coordinating all Lighting and Scenic Design elements for the Company. Some of his Lighting Design highlights since joining MCB include Slaughter on 10th Avenue, Giselle, Coppélia, Edward Villella's The Neighborhood Ballroom, and Twyla Tharp/Elvis Costello's NIGHTSPOT. Hall and his wife Shannon have two sons, John and William.