Sweeping the stage: why Latin is the New Russian.

They're everywhere, and they're terrific. They have names like Corella and Garcia, Rodriguez and Salazar, Marquez and Molina, Reyes and Gomes, Acosta, Rojo, Nino, and Feijoo. They come from Cuba, Spain, and all over South America, and dance for companies throughout the U.S. and Europe. Driven by ambition, economies, artistic curiosity, and a desire to pack as much dancing into their lives as they can, they're ballet's new Latins, and like Russians in the 1970s, they've seized the international spotlight.

Of course, Latins have been around ballet for ages. Rosita Mauri, a fiery Spanish virtuoso, dominated the Paris Opera Ballet of the 1880s and 1890s. Latins figured among the pioneers of twentieth-century American ballet. Alicia Alonso, founder of the Ballet Nacional de Cuba, arrived in New York in 1937, studied at the School of American Ballet, joined Lincoln Kirstein's Ballet Caravan, and became a charter member of (American) Ballet Theatre. Nicholas Magallanes (from Mexico) and Francisco Moncion (from the Dominican Republic) danced in the very first performance of the New York City Ballet in 1948.

Today's Latins, however, differ from their predecessors. For one thing, there are more of them. At American Ballet Theatre, Spanish and Portuguese names appear at every rank. The same is true at Boston Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, and Miami City Ballet (eight of whose fourteen principals are Latins). The Tulsa Ballet, which has many foreign dancers, includes a Spanish recuit. The phenomenon has appeared in Europe as well. The Royal Ballet, once an all-British enterprise, now has four Latin principals.

What accounts for this Latin explosion? "It's the training," says Lourdes Lopez, the Cuban-born former NYCB principal dancer who now heads The George Balanchine Foundation. She explains that Alonso sent retiring dancers to the Kirov to study their teaching methods. "Our school has a lot of the Russian school," agrees Lorena Feijoo, a Cuban-trained principal with San Francisco Ballet. (See sidebar opposite.) Lorena and her sister, Lorna Feijoo, a Boston Ballet principal, are part of the Cuban exodus, which includes teachers as well as dancers. However, schools all over the Latin world are training future stars. At the top of the list are the Victor Ullate School of Dance in Madrid (see p. 52) and the Teatro Colon's Instituto Superior de Arte in Buenos Aires.

Training alone doesn't explain the Latin phenomenon. "We come with something special," explains Lorna Feijoo. "It's in the blood. We are a little sensual, a little like fire." In Latin cultures, social dancing is part of daily life. NYCB soloist Joaquin De Luz loves salsa, as does ABT principal Jose Manuel Carreno. (In the PBS documentary Born to be Wild he dances a rhumba in the streets of his native Cuba.)

"In Cuba," says Lorena Feijoo, "you grow up around people singing and dancing all the time. Ballet is the same kind of thing, but a little more refined."

ABT's artistic director Kevin McKenzie praises the "naturalness" of Latin dancers. Their easy, unforced use of gesture breathes life into mime, making it an extension of speech. This unselfconsciousness carries over to acting. Latins do not shy away from the histrionics of ballet acting--the life-and-death passions of Swan Lake, the swagger of Don Quixote, or the moonlit poetry of Les Sylphides. Unlike Russians, they come to the stage unburdened by the heavy' weight of tradition. For Latins, there is no single way to do something. Each role can be imagined anew.

Tamara Rojo, however, a Royal Ballet principal who trained with Ullate, has found a place in a company with a strong heritage. The Royal has "its traditions and its ways," she says. "It's an establishment, a British establishment," and although everyone welcomed her, she felt slit had to justify her position. "It was a little overwhelming al the beginning."

Although gender roles have changed in the Latin world, traditional ideas persist. Latin dancers feel at home in the nine-teenth-century repertory, with its melting heroines and impassioned heroes. There is no conflict between machismo--endemic in Latin cultures and the expression of gender in most traditional ballets.

Yet more Latin men than women are finding work here. One reason for the gender gap is the shortage of homegrown danseurs. "In this country," explains San Francisco Ballet's artistic director Helgi Tomasson, "young men have to struggle to become a dancer. In Spain and Latin countries like Cuba, dance is something that's accepted. There's no extra baggage."

Lorena Feijoo thinks there may be other reasons for the gender gap. " Latin women are a little bit more curvey. With guys they are less picky. A fabulous body isn't the same as strength and artistry."

As a rule, people do not emigrate unless they feel they must. A dancer's life is short, and both Latin America and Spain lie outside the global ballet economy. For an international career, Latin dancers have to leave home. Rojo wanted "to do all the big classics" and to perform ballets, like Kenneth MacMillan's Manon, that she knew only from video.

Unlike Russian dancers of the 1970s, most Latins can hop the first plane home after a season. They remain as culturally distinct as they choose. This gives a dual identity to their art; it continues 10 feed off its roots while soaking up influences internationally. Today's Latin dancers are breathing new life into ballet by remaining true to themselves--and to the passion that carried them from their first plies to the heights of fame.

Lynn Garafola, a dance historian and critic, teaches at Barnard College in New York City.