Laura Valentín - Guest Artist

LAURA VALENTÍN

Laura’s dance training took place at Scuola Cantorum, San Juan, Puerto Rico, with Rafael Martínez de la Rosa, Carlos Iván Santos and Sol Maisonet. At age 11, she joined the Conservatory of Ballet Concierto of Puerto Rico; joining the company’s corps of ballet four years later, after representing Puerto Rico at the V International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Mississippi. She has been promoted to principal dancer in 2004. Among her teachers were Carlota Carrera, María Carrera, Lolita San Miguel, José Parés, Vladimir Issaev and Lourdes Gómez.  Since January 2005 through May 2016, she was the principal dancer of Balleteatro Nacional de Puerto Rico.  She is being the prima ballerina of the Island since 2006, under the training of her ballet mistress María Carrera, and ballet master Joaquín Banegas, Miguel Campanería and Lourdes Ortega.

Her repertoire includes the leading roles of Giselle, Swan Lake, Don Quixote, Carmen, Coppélia, Sylvia, Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, Les Sylphides, Grand Pas de Quatre; Dying Swan, Majísimo; pas de deux such as Diana and Acteon, Don Quixote, Flames of Paris, Talisman, Spring Waters, Romeo and Juliet, La Bayadere, Flower Festival; and neoclassical and contemporary works like Piazzolla en Concierto of Julio López;  Alberto Mendez’s Muñecos, Intermezzi per L’amore, Paso a Tres and Phantom of the Opera, George Balanchine’s Serenade, In the Night by Jerome Robbins, Carmina Burana by Septime Webre,  Ana Sánchez-Colberg’s Ojos que no ven and Entre Huella y Pisada, Rodney Rivera’s Techo de Cristal, ¿Dónde Están? and El Regreso, María Julia Landa’s Entre Cuerdas Rotas, and Sonata by Carlos Iván Santos.

She has been guest artist and guest teacher in companies of the United States and Latin America, as well as Festivals such as: three editions of the Miami International Dance Festival, the Festival Puerta de Oro in Colombia, the International Dance Festival in Panama, and the 24 and 25 edition of the Festival Internacional de Ballet Alicia Alonso en la Habana, Cuba. She is one of the choreographers of the new versions of Carmen, The Nutcracker, Sylvia, Little Red Riding Hood, among other choreographies for Balleteatro Nacional.  She trained and choreographed for the Puerto Rican delegation that represented the Island in the semifinal and final of the YAGP 2013 competition. She led Christian dance groups, and has also been a commercial dancer in television specials, films, shows and events.  She holds a bachelor degree in Public Relations. Since 2017, Laura is the director and founder, with her husband the former principal dancer Osmay Molina, of Centro Danza, a dance training and education center specialized in ballet.

She has been guest artist and guest teacher in companies of the United States and Latin America, as well as Festivals such as: three editions of the Miami International Dance Festival, the Festival Puerta de Oro in Colombia, the International Dance Festival in Panama, and the 24 and 25 edition of the Festival Internacional de Ballet Alicia Alonso en la Habana, Cuba. She is one of the choreographers of the new versions of Carmen, The Nutcracker, Sylvia, Little Red Riding Hood, among other choreographies for Balleteatro Nacional.  She trained and choreographed for the Puerto Rican delegation that represented the Island in the semifinal and final of the YAGP 2013 competition. She led Christian dance groups, and has also been a commercial dancer in television specials, films, shows and events.  She holds a bachelor degree in Public Relations. Since 2017, Laura is the director and founder, with her husband the former principal dancer Osmay Molina, of Centro Danza, a dance training and education center specialized in ballet.