Ironically, it was an unexpected compulsion to sit still that made Alejandro Mariño Hechavarria realize he loved dance.
“When I was a child, I did a lot of projects about dance in school. But one day, I was watching TV in my house and I saw the National Ballet of Cuba dancing,” remembers Hechavarria, who was born in Cuba and lived there until 2022.
“Literally, all my attention was on the TV for like an hour. That was impressive because normally I did not just sit and watch TV.”
After years studying at the Cuba National Ballet School, he would eventually perform with the very company that had first transfixed him. That led to training in Florida and a spot in the second company of Ohio’s BalletMet. This summer, it was announced he would join Richmond Ballet, a move Hechavarria is very excited about.
“When I was at BalletMet, we did Ma Cong’s ‘Flights of Fancy’ [in March],” he says. “I was like, ‘oh my god, I want to dance like this!’”
Hechavarria is one of three new dancers joining the ballet’s professional company, prompted by the retirement of several dancers this past spring. The other two are Annika Kuo, previously at BalletX in Philadelphia, and Kaitlin Roemer, coming from the Atlanta Ballet.
While their backgrounds are all different, an appreciation of Ma Cong’s choreography and a compelling interest in working with him is common among all three.
“I’m a huge fan of his work; his choreography is just brilliant,” says Roemer. “You can see little parts of him in each of his pieces. I’m truly excited to see how the company transforms under his artistic lens.”
Roemer grew up in rural Michigan where she ended up in dance classes essentially by default. “I was five and my older sister was into them and my parents were like, we need something for Kaitlin to do too,” she remembers. “As the years went on, there was something about the consistency of the training and the discipline that I was really drawn to.”
It was a movie that finally made her realize that ballet could be a career choice. “I was 10 or 11 when I saw the documentary, ‘First Position,’ about dancers preparing for the American Grand Prix finals,” she remembers. “It was really inspiring and, after I saw that, I thought maybe I want to focus on ballet and see where that takes me.”
Similarly to Roemer, Kuo was put in ballet classes early on but her reaction was a bit more vehement. “I hated them,” she laughs. “My mom really had to force me to go to classes.”
It wasn’t until she was in her teens that Kuo’s interest picked up. “I really liked the aesthetic of ballet,” she says. “I liked that there was a right and a wrong way to do things; gray areas really scared me.”
Being grounded in the fundamentals has, perhaps ironically, made Kuo a big fan of contemporary ballet. “I like contemporary works because they take the foundation of ballet and then move outside the boundaries,” she says.
Though only in Richmond for a matter of weeks, each dancer expressed an early appreciation for the city. Hechavarria has been checking out the culinary scene and was excited to hear about the restaurant “Cuba Cuba” and the chance to have meals reminiscent of his home country.
Roemer has found Richmond charming and relatively accessible. “Coming from Atlanta, which is so spread out, I love how walkable the city is,” she says. Kuo confesses to having just bought an espresso machine and has started exploring local coffee shops.
But mostly, each is looking forward to progressing to the next step in their career. “I’m interested to see what choreographers Ma is going to bring in to work with us and what repertory we’re going to be doing,” says Kuo.
“It’s exciting to not know and to put my trust into Ma and see what happens.”
