The Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes awarded 19 important figures who have shared their talent and have made important contributions to Mexican dance. ‘Una vida en la danza’ (A Lifetime Dedicated to Dance) was the title of this tribute that took place last night at Centro Cultural del Bosque’s Teatro de la Danza.
Sergio Ramírez, Fine Arts General Deputy Director, pointed out that this theatre is dedicated to this versatile discipline that spans from traditional Mexican dances to more contemporary genres.
‘This is part of what dance represents to our society. A universal art form that touches us intellectually, spiritually and emotionally’, he added.
Before the award ceremony, the video ‘A life dedicated to dance. In memoriam’ was screened, that presents the life story of dance figures that have shared their dance talent.
A few minutes later, Sergio Ramírez and Elizabeth García, Director of the National Dance Research, Archive and Information Centre ‘José Limón’, gave in memoriam the awards for classic dance to Elena Carter and Michael Land.
Freddy Romero received the prize for modern-contemporary dance, and Edmundo Juárez Álvarez for folk dance. Special in memoriam acknowledgements were given to two important figures that were not dancers but dedicated a big part of their lifes to develop dance: Raúl Hell and Luis Márquez.
Special acknowledgement medals were bestowed upon the architect Carlos Covarrubias, the classical dancers Angélica Kleen and María Luisa López Méndez, the modern-contemporary dancers Bernardo Benítez, Silvia Unzueta, Luis Zermeño and Juan Casados; the Spanish dance performers Cristina Aguirre and María Elena Anaya, and the ballroom dancer Jesús Uvalle.
The tribute ‘Una vida en la danza’ was created in 1985 as Felipe Segura’s idea and then stopped as a consequence of his death in May 2004, among other causes. In the year 2010, the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes introduced it again for a second life cycle.
http://www.informador.com.mx/cultura/2011/302353/6/inba-reconoce-a-personalidades-de-la-danza.htm