Artistic Director, Alexi Zubiria
Alexi Zubiria – Artistic Director
Alexi Zubiria has served as the Artistic Director of Western Ballet since 2007, following a distinguished career as a dancer and guest artist with some of the most renowned ballet companies in the world. His studies began in Bogota, Colombia at the Ballet Gran Colombia with Hernando Monroy, and within a few of years of training, he joined the International Ballet of Caracas under Vicente Nebrada. Zubiria’s education was significantly impacted by Nina Novak, renowned Ballet Russe ballerina, with whom he refined his ballet training. In 1982, she prepared him for the Jackson International Dance Competition, where he won the silver medal.
His professional career as a dancer began in 1977 with the International Ballet of Caracas, where he advanced to principal dancer in 1980 and performed numerous times on the European Summer Festival stage. He was a principal dancer with Deutsche Oper Berlin, a principal and guest artist with Ballet National de Marseille and Roland Petit, and a soloist with the San Francisco Ballet. He also has performed as principal guest artist with Teatro Teresa Carreno, Maximum Dance Company, and the Rochester City Ballet.
Zubiria has danced leading roles in most of the classical repertoire, including Baryshnikov’s Don Quixote, Nureyev’s Cinderella, Helgi Tomasson’s Sleeping Beauty and La Fille Mal Garde, Roland Petit’s Puss in Boots, Le Corsaire, Le Bayadere and Paquita. His contemporary leading roles include co-starring with Nureyev in Birgit Cullberg’s “Miss Julie.” In addition, he has been featured in ballets by Vicente Nebrada, Hans van Manen, Alvin Ailey, Valery Panov, John Butler, Margo Sappington, Goh Choo San, James Kudelka, Helgi Tomasson, Jiri Kylian, Maurice Bejart, William Forsythe, and Val Caniparoli.
During his tenure with Western Ballet, Zubiria has created four full-length ballets: Snow White, Red Riding Hood, Puss in Boots and Beauty and the Beast. He has also brought to the company’s repertoire more than a dozen Mountain View, American, and World premieres from some of the world’s top dance makers. His artistic policy aims to preserve the classical repertoire of the 19th and 20th centuries while presenting works by the top contemporary choreographers of our time. Today Western Ballet enjoys a truly international repertory with a diverse, multi-cultural roster of dancers. Under his leadership, Western Ballet also opened a beginning ballet education series for their Open Program, so that new students with no ballet background whatsoever can enjoy learning ballet. With the establishment of a new syllabus and methodology, the Youth Program currently offers truly professional dance instruction for the region.
Under Zubiria’s leadership, the Western Ballet Black Box Theater was built with the mission to create, stage and present new works to our community regularly, as dancers prepare for performances in bigger theaters. Zubiria’s focus is to be a major contributor to the growth of the field of dance, including national and international touring.
In addition to leading Western Ballet into a bright future, Mr. Zubiria holds a full-time position with Agilent Technologies in the area of Bioinformatics and Information Technology. Alexi and his wife, Eileen Zubiria are the proud parents of three children, Carolina, Giulia and Franco.