Ballet Hispanico: dance with a Latin Manhattan beat.

Eight long-limbed dancers undulate across the floor, moving their torsos with the flexibility of cats. Tossing their long, dark hair with abandon, the women throw taunting looks from behind their fans at their suitors, who gently mop sweat from their brows with invisible handkerchiefs. To the romantic rhythms of Cuban songs of the 1950s, and under the direction of distinguished Cuban choreographer Alberto Alonso, the members of Ballet Hispanico are conjuring up Old Havana in a dance created especially for them.

For all those who decry the lack of passion in today's dance, Ballet Hispanico is the answer. The brainchild of Tina Ramirez, this thirteen-member, Manhattan-based company has been strutting its stuff all over the United States and the world for almost twenty-five years. It has danced at the Kennedy Center, Spain's Expo '92, and Jacob's Pillow, in 5,000-seat South American theaters and universities' alternative spaces. The company's combination of balletic lines and the folkloric and movement styles of South and Central America, Spain, and the Caribbean is one of the revelations of dance today. Fortunate New York City audiences can see for themselves when Ballet Hispanico takes to the Joyce Theater stage from November 29 through December 11.

"When we travel to a city for the first time," says Venezuela-born Ramirez, whose mother was Puerto Rican and whose father was a Mexican bullfighter, "the audience doesn't know what to expect--ballet, modern, folklore. Most people have misconceptions about Hispanic culture. After they see our shows, they have a much better understanding."

A small, fine-boned woman, Ramirez has the formidable responsibilities of running both the company, which tours several months a year, and a nine-hundred-student school where mostly minority and disadvantaged children learn classical ballet and traditional Spanish dance. Her mission drives her: "I want my students and company to know the richness of their backgrounds and be proud."

After arriving in the United States at age seven, Ramirez studied with Lola Bravo, the grande dame of Spanish dance, as well as with Alexandra Danilova and Anna Sokolow. In the ensuing years, she toured with the Federico Rey Dance Company and appeared in the Broadway shows Kismet and Lute Song and the television version of Man of La Mancha. What she learned was that Hispanic dancers and Hispanic dance needed higher visibility.

"I wanted to overcome the stereotypes," explains Ramirez. "The Hispanic world is really so complex. Think of the dance forms--flamenco, salsa, rumba, tango, classical Spanish dance. There's so much to work with. Our dancers also represent a broad mix: Puerto Rican, Cuban, Uruguayan, and Colombian, as well as New Yorkers of Hispanic origin, and an Italian. Because of their backgrounds, the feelings and ideas in our choreography are already familiar to most of them when they arrive."

Starting with a limited repertoire provided by choreographers Vicente Nebrada, Graciela Daniele, and Talley Beatty, Ballet Hispanico now has grown to include works by William Whitener, George Faison, Christopher Gillis, and Amanda Miller. This year there will be five premieres: a flamenco work called Solo by Susan Marshall; the still untitled piece by Alonso, with music by Gloria and Emilio Estefan; and Good Night Paradise by the young Catalan Ramon Oller, artistic director of Spain's leading modern dance company, Metros Danza Contemporanea. It is choreographed to the songs of Spain's pop diva Marina Rossell and of Mauricio Villavecchia. Also to be performed will be Miller's Two by an Error and Gillis's "Farewell," taken from his Andalusian Green.

"I'm interested in works that push the art of choreography further," explains Ramirez. "I spend a lot of time looking at the dances of young choreographers, particularly those with Hispanic backgrounds. Dance has to evolve. Influences change every day. We're now into the second generation of Puerto Ricans. And now the Dominicans are here. I feel the company should reflect these cultural changes."

Ramirez has very definite ideas as to what constitutes a successful ballet and an accomplished dancer: "A ballet must have good structure, which doesn't necessarily mean a narrative. I watch how it builds, and how I react to the music. My dancers have to have a strong balletic line, and weight in their movement. I want them to show how Hispanic people move-loose in the shoulder and upper back. They also have to learn to dance on the offbeat, and know where the downbeat is. Otherwise they don't convey the truth about Hispanic dance. It's about communication--everyday longing, emotion, isolation, extreme happiness, passion. Someone once asked me if I didn't worry that we presented stereotypes--but in fact we are a passionate, often flamboyant people.

"We were quite audacious, and took our tango piece to Argentina," continues Ramirez. "It turned out to be one of the biggest hits. Afterward an Argentine dancer said to one of ours, `You really know how to glide down the floor.' Our dancer asked, 'Is that good or bad?' and got the answer, `Very, very good. Only an Argentine dancer knows how to glide down the floor.'

"But we have to be that authentic. We have that responsibility. In this country, we are the only contemporary Hispanic dance company. And we certainly can't go to Hispanic countries and misrepresent their heritage."

Such a varied repertoire needs a ballet mistress with unusual sophistication. Ramirez found her in Alexandra Wells, an American who was a principal dancer with Lyon Opera Ballet for fifteen years. "Being back in the United States is a big change," says Wells, who has just started at the job. "In Europe they take much more time to create. Here everything moves much faster. But these dancers couldn't be more adaptable. I've never seen any others who could move so convincingly from one mood to another. If they didn't have a sense of rhythm in their blood, they'd be lost.

"But what makes them especially pleasing to work with is their maturity. Because of the way the company is set up, almost everywhere they perform, they also give master classes. That means they are teachers as well as dancers. They've had to learn how to explain their craft. "Learning how to capture the attention of adolescents isn't an easy task, but they do it. All these things make them much more a part of the world than many dancers ever have a chance to be."

Thirty-one-year-old Pedro Ruiz is a good example. Born in Cuba and trained by Alicia Alonso and other great teachers in Caribbean, Afro-Cuban, and folkloric dance, he eventually left with his family when their activities, including his ballet classes, were curtailed. They moved to Venezuela, where he danced with the national company. When it became possible to come to the United States ten years ago, Ruiz was afraid he wouldn't find a place that would welcome his talents. Fortunately, a family friend knew Ramirez's mother. Of course, Ramirez couldn't have been happier to find someone with his credentials.

"Tina was like a mother," explains Ruiz. "She saw the dance world in a whole different way. She said, `Be yourself on the stage; be you.' I realized when I did this it was much easier for the audiences to feel what I feel, so they understand the dance better. Teaching helps me, too, in finding out what people's reactions are. I've had students all over the country, many who never saw a Hispanic dance in their lives.

"I'm the kind of person who loves to dance very much. We get to try so many things, so it gives me a chance to develop different characters. We really learn something new every time we dance because sometimes it's one technique, another time something else. All we get in class is straight ballet, so we'll have the long lines and right feet Tina loves. On our own, we put in the other part--the open body--that makes us move like snakes."

Dancer Eduardo Vilaro also was born in Cuba, but he came to the United States much earlier than Ruiz and he studied modem dance at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. "All I wanted was to find a company that would have something to do with my cultural heritage," says Vilaro, "so I was very happy to join Ballet Hispanico. It includes so many different styles and forms. When you first start here, switching from one to the other is very difficult. Tina always says it takes three years to get used to the varied repertoire. But you have to do everything from the get-go."

During the Joyce season, like all company members, Vilaro will be in almost every ballet. Two premieres, Gillis's "Farewell" and the untitled Alonso ballet, are particularly emotional. Vilaro, who will dance in both, explains, "On one level the Gillis piece is about how people relate to one another and, on a more abstract level, about Spain. The style of Alonso's ballet is altogether different--much more modem and theatrical. I'd call it passionate in its lyricism."

Vilaro doesn't just teach master classes on tour with Ballet Hispanico; he also works with homeless New York City children, ages six to fifteen, over the Christmas season. "Tina and I decided a few years ago that this would be a good idea," he says, "and the kids love it. We don't just teach them dance; we teach them about costumes and props, and I have them keep journals of their days with us.

They give us a lot back."

Ballet Hispanico's members are as varied in personality as the dances they perform. "The longer I'm with Tina," says Vilaro, "the more I appreciate her ability to choose dancers who are right for this repertoire. We're all strong, clear personalities. You might think that would mean battles, but instead we're like a family. We come from very different backgrounds, but we blend beautifully."

A Philippine and Irish-American background hasn't given Lynne Morrissey any problems relating to Hispanic dance. She was trained in classical ballet as a child and moved to modern dance in college. After graduating in 1989 from the State University of New York at Purchase, Morrissey auditioned for Ballet Hispanico and was immediately accepted. "It's perfect for me," she explains, "because it's classically based but allows you to explore modern, Hispanic, and Afro-Caribbean styles."

In the upcoming season she will re-create her role as the frustrated, scheming princess in Vicente Nebrada's Inez de Castro, a story about a Portuguese king whose son's royal Spanish lover is killed through the machinations of a jealous princess. "This role is as dramatic as my new one in Ramon Oller's Good Night Paradise," says Morrissey. "When the curtain opens, the audience sees us in an elegant drawing room. I stand there and pour a glass of red wine down the front of my dress."

Jose Costas has to do something equally unusual in Susan Marshall's Solo. For five minutes, he dances on a thirty-inch-wide platform with a bowl of water on his head. "It is literally--not just symbolically--a struggle," Costas says. "The bowl of water represents a handicap carried by an artist--a burden. It's very intense. I need twenty minutes to recover.

"If it weren't for Tina, I couldn't do this kind of thing. She coaches you, asks you questions about your roles that make you think. She gives you the freedom to create. Tina has made me an artist."