Cortez & Company Dance Foundation, Inc.

Causes: Arts & Culture, Dance, Performing Arts Centers

Mission: Veteran performer and longtime Paul Taylor dancer, Hernando Cortez stepped out in 1991 to create his own vision of contemporary ballet forming a dance company that The New York Times describes as "dynamic, exuberant and infectiously joyous." Born in the Philippines and raised in British Columbia, Cortez is an emotionally-driven choreographer who uses his culturally-rich background, as well as his training in a wide range of dance styles and dramatic theater to create dance pieces that are unique, compelling and personal.Since its founding, Cortez & Co. [Contemporary/Ballet] has received numerous awards and foundation grants including the Nora Kaye and Herbert Ross Award for new choreographer in 1991, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Grant in 1998 & 1999, and a National Endowment for the Arts Grant in 1999. The company has been presented around the country at various venues including the Michigan Opera Theater, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Georgia Tech's Ferst Center for the performing Arts, the Grand Opera House in Macon, GA, Celebrate Brooklyn! at the Prospect Park Bandshell in NY. It has been presented in New York at the Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse, Marymount Manhattan Theater, Dance Theater Workshop. St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, and the Hole in the Wall Gang Theater.Cortez's Manhattan-based company fuses the brilliance of balletic technique with the athletic sensibilities and stylistic motifs of contemporary dance. The eclectic and clearly signatured works range in moods from edge-of-your-seat suspense to inspired whimsy, from brooding solitude to frenetic madness, from challenging dance/drama to show-stopping theatricality.