Acerca
Javier Torres
Personal life
From Cuba, Javier was born in Remedios, a city located 3 miles from the northern coast of Cuba, in the center of the island. It is the oldest Spanish settlement in the former Las Villas province. His father was a well known journalist in Cuba. His mum was also a very well respected radio actress in the island. Javier has a twin brother and an older sister.
Education
-Graduates from the Elementary Ballet School “Alejo Carpentier” in Havana-Cuba.
-Graduated with honours from the National Ballet School of Havana-Cuba as a ballet dancer and ballet teacher.
-BA (Hons) in Business Management and Leadership – The Open University.
-Master in Business Administration MBA Cumbria University (2022)
OTHER EXPERIENCES INCLUDE
-Ballet and PDD master/teacher at the National Ballet School Fernando Alonso, Havana-Cuba. (2004-2009)
-Northern Ballet & Northern Ballet’s Academy- Coach/Ballet master.
-Coach/Ballet Master for prestigious International Dance Competitions.
-Coach/Ballet Master – School of Ballet Arts and Ballet Arts Company, West Palm Beach FL.
-Coach/Ballet Master – The Art of classical Ballet, Miami-FL.
-Clore Leadership – Emerging Leaders 2019
-Rural Retreat 2020, emerging leaders Dance East – Ipswich 2020.
-Board of Trustees at Serendipity UK.
-Executive Director – Dance Open America™ (DOA™),(2019-2021).
-Artists Representative
-Executive Director – OG Art & Productions
-Mentorships programme with several prestigious artistic directors around the world.
awards
-Mention in the Honour Book of the Havana Grand Theatre for his performance in the role of Prince Desiré in Sleeping Beauty (2009), in 2012 for his performance as Prometheus in the Ballet Poem of the Fire, and in 2016 for his performance with Carla Fracci in the ballet Desnuda Luz de Amor (Naked Light of Love).
-Cuban Artists and Writers Union Villanueva Prize for his performance in the ballet Agon in 2002.
-In 2012 he received the award “Constructores de la Danza” for his contribution to the Culture of the state of Ceara in Brazil.
-Nominated for the Dancing Times Award for Best Male Dancer at the 19th National Dance Awards UK – 2018.
-Voted one of the top hundred dancers of the season 2010-2011 & 2011-2012 by the critics of the UK in Dance Europe magazine.
-Nominated for the One Dance UK Dance personality of the year 2019.
-Winner of the One Dance UK People’s Choice Award 2019.
-Winner of the One Dance UK People’s Choice Award 2020.
His Career
In 2000, Javier joined 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 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); at Salzburg Ballet (2016 and 2019), Dance for Ukraine (2022), among many 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 Bhakti; 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 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, Dangerous Liaisons, 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.
Every year since 2000 he has performed in the prestigious International Ballet Festival of Havana Cuba and recently, he has also performed at the well-known Latitude Music Festival in Suffolk.
He is a One Dance UK Member as well as a Member of the International Dance Council CID, UNESCO and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
