Joseph Hernandez
dance
Joseph Hernandez
united states/germany
Joseph Hernandez was born in Fort Knox KY in 1988. He graduated from the School of American Ballet in 2007, and was awarded an apprenticeship with the New York City Ballet that same year. Later he was invited to join Ballet Austin, The Royal Ballet of Flanders, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, and subsequently the Semperoper Ballett Dresden.
His work as a choreographer has been presented with critical acclaim by such organizations as The Joyce NYC, Festspielhaus Hellerau, The Semperoper Dresden, and Les Ballets de Monte Carlo. His work The Lavender Follies was filmed for European Television by ZDF Deutschland and has now been disseminated worldwide.
He has been a guest teacher at SUNY Purchase College well as the Royal Danish Ballet and Artof (Zurich) summer courses. He currently lives in Dresden, Germany.
<< This project drifted into my life as a confrontation. I had already begun a process of recalibration that had shut something off inside me. The music, as dark and persistent as it is, has something primal about it, frustrating. This frustration is cathartic, and was an easy gateway to that thing that I had been hiding from myself. As a dancer and artist, it is easy to loose sight of the simple fact that the presence of a body is a dance.
This project was a wonderful reminder that the expression of a body is not reliant on conditions; rather it is reliant on the mental presence of the owner. It was a reminder of the power of human focus, that we are capable of creating magic and focus, expression and art, when the goal is such, and not “being seen” or “ being successful”. I am thankful for this reminder, as I am thankful for this pause.>>
