Javier joined Northern Ballet in 2009 and left in 2022.
Javier began his ballet training in 1994 at the Vocational Art School “Olga Alonso” in Santa Clara city and continued at the Elementary School “Alejo Carpentier” in Havana. He finished his ballet studies at the National School of Ballet in Havana, Cuba where he graduated as a Ballet Dancer and Ballet Teacher. In 2000, he joined the Ballet Nacional de Cuba, under the artistic-technical guidance of Alicia Alonso, and where he worked very closely with many ballet coaches like Loipa Araujo, Josefina Mendez, Aurora Bosch, Martha Garcia, Maria Elena Llorente, and Azari Plisetski among others; he was promoted to Principal Dancer in 2004 and Premier Dancer in 2009. With the Ballet Nacional de Cuba he has performed in many different countries across the Americas, Europe and Asia. He has participated as a Guest Star in International Galas in El Escorial, Spain (2006, 2008, and 2012); Carlos Acosta and his friends (2007) in London; Teresa Carreño Theatre Gala, Venezuela (2008, 2009 and 2010); in Brazil at the International Ballet Festival of Fortaleza "Fendador" (2012); and at Salzburg Ballet (2016 and 2019) among others.
His repertoire includes the leading roles of the romantic-classical tradition, among them, Giselle, La Fille mal gardée, Coppélia, Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, Don Quixote, and Swan Lake as well as works by Cuban and foreign creators' contemporary choreographies: Alicia Alonso's Gottschalk Symphony; Shakespeare and his masks; Romeo and Juliet; Naked Light of Love; Alberto Mendez's Suite Géneris and Poem of Fire or Prometheus; Alberto Alonso's Carmen; Majisimo; Cranko's Onegin; Balanchine's Theme and Variation; Agon and Apollo; Antonio Gades’ Blood Wedding; Azari Plizetski's Canto Vital; Maurice Bejart's Bahkti; Roland Petit’s La Arlesianne and Proust ou Les Intermittences du Coeur (pdd); Ivan Tenorio's Hamlet; John Neumeier’s Othello (pdd); As you Like it; Sir Anton Dolin's Variations for four; Kader Belarbi's La Reine Morte; and Michel Desconvey's Dying Swan among others.
He was awarded the Cuban Artists and Writers Union Villanueva Prize for his performance in the ballet Agon in 2002. In 2006 he received Mention in the Honour Book of the Havana Grand Theatre for his performance with Carla Fracci in the ballet Desnuda Luz de Amor (Naked Light of Love), in 2009 for his performance in the role of Prince Desiré in Sleeping Beauty and in 2012 for his performance as Prometheus in the Ballet Poem of the Fire. In 2012 he received the award "Constructores de la Danza" for his contribution to the Culture of the state of Ceara in Brazil. He was nominated for the Dancing Times Award for Best Male Dancer at the 19th National Dance Awards 2018.
He joined Northern Ballet in 2010 as Premier Dancer under the artistic guidance of David Nixon OBE. He has performed with the Company around the UK performing leading roles in Nixon's The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Ondine, Beauty & the Beast, Hamlet, Madame Butterfly, Wuthering Heights, Peter Pan, and David Nixon and Claude-Michel Schönberg's Cleopatra, as well as Hans Van Manen's Concertante, Massimo Morricone’s A Christmas Carol, Daniel de Andrade's The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, Cathy Marston's Jane Eyre and Victoria Jonathan Watkins' 1984, Demis Volpi’s Little Monsters and Aus Ihrer Zeit, and Jean Christophe Maillot's Romeo and Juliet among others. Recently he performed leads in Kenneth MacMillan's Las Hermanas and Gloria; he also performed in the latter at the Royal Opera House as part of their Kenneth MacMillan: a national celebration programme.
For his performance as Julius Caesar in Nixon's Cleopatra he was voted one of the top hundred dancers of the season 2010-2011 by the critics of the UK in Dance Europe magazine. The same magazine also voted him one of the top hundred dancers of the season 2011-2012 for his performance in Nixon's I've Got Rhythm.
Every year since 2000 he has performed in the prestigious International Ballet Festival of Havana Cuba. In 2019 he performed in The Kingdom of Back at Latitude Festival.
He is a One Dance UK Member as well as a Member of the International Dance Council CID, UNESCO
Clore Leadership - Emerging Leaders 2019
Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts FRSA
Useful links...
Photos from Javier's premiere performance with Northern Ballet
Header photo taken by Justin Slee. Other photos taken by Bill Cooper and Emma Kauldhar.