Guest Teacher: Sergio Torrado
Sergio Torrado is a regular guest teacher here at The Rock School! You may recognize Mr. Torrado from his role in the oscar nominated film Black Swan that won Natalie Portman an academy award for best actress. Mr. Torrado played the black swan aside Ms. Portman.
Enjoy some photos of Mr. Torrado teaching our students in our studios:
Since the beginning of his professional career, Mr. Torrado has danced lead roles in classic ballets both in Spain and in the United States, including Basilio in Don Quixote, Albretch in Giselle, and the pas de trios in Swan Lake. Torrado’s Balanchine works include Sanguinic in The Four Temperaments, Allegro Brillante, Ballo Della Regina, Serenade, Emeralds in Jewels, and the Prince and Snow King in The Nutcracker. He has also performed in many ballets by contemporary choreographers like Peter Martins’s The Waltz Project, Hans Van Manen’s Grosse Fugue, and others by Helgi Tomasson, Christopher Wheeldon, Jerome Robbins, Yuri Possokhov and Mark Morris. Mr. Torrado has received several awards, including First Prize in the 1st International Competition of Zaragoza in Spain in 1997, Silver Medal at the 3rd International Competition of Havana, Cuba, and The Promising Young Dancer Award at the Dance Festival of Vignale, Italy. In June 2003, he performed the pas de deux from Giselle and the Grand Pas in Classic at the Gala for Stars from San Francisco.
Matthew Powell
Matthew Powell was a wonderful addition to The Rock School’s guest faculty for the summer intensive program. He was attentive to all of our students and a pleasure to have at Rock Center in and out of the studio.
At the age of sixteen, Matthew Powell relocated from Shepherdstown, West Virginia to New York City to train on scholarship at the School of American Ballet, the official school of the New York City Ballet.
After two years of training at SAB, Matthew headed west to dance with the Pacific Northwest Ballet. While dancing with PNB, he performed soloist roles and toured worldwide. In 2001, Matthew joined the Kansas City Ballet, where he danced soloist and principal roles in both classical and contemporary ballets. In addition to dancing, Matthew was a faculty member with the Kansas City Ballet School. He has also taught classes and choreographed ballets for numerous renowned universities, companies, and schools. As a guest artist, he has performed as a solo dancer with the San Francisco Opera with the Metropolitan Ballet of Minneapolis, and with many other companies and schools across the country. In 2006, he was awarded one of five fellowship grants given nationwide from the NewYork Choreographic Institute for the creation of a new work, titled “Resonant Dances.”
In the Summer of 2008, Matthew conceived and directed the Crossroads Ballet Festival a celebration of classical ballet.The festival combined the talents of dancers from nine ballet companies across the globe and played to sold-out houses over the course of two nights in Kansas City. Most recently, Matthew has been cast in the international tour of the classic Arthur Laurents-Stephen Sondheim-Leonard Bernstein musical West Side Story.
Orlando Molina
Orlando Molina taught during the 5th week of our Summer Intensive Program and he quickly became a favorite amongst our students. Mr. Molina is an ABT Certified Teacher, who has successfully completed the ABT Teacher Training Intensive in Primary through level 7 and Partnering of the ABT National Training Curriculum. He also received the Outstanding Teacher Award at the 2009 YAGP semi-final in South Carolina.
Mr. Molina has been a guest teacher at different schools including Atlanta Ballet,TCU-Texas, Ohio Dance Theatre, St. Johns River University in Florida, Mississippi Metropolitan Ballet Theatre, Kowa Ballet in Okayama-Japan, and recently he was invited to be a faculty member at the SERBA festival in High Point, NC. Presently, Mr. Molina is a freelance teacher in Atlanta, Georgia.
Mr. Molina would stop the music and make corrections immediately, making sure students could feel what muscles were being used and in what way. After watching students go into passe he had them lay on their stomachs and try stretching their turn out to improve their positions and allow them to feel how it should when standing.
Orlando Molina was born in Guane, Pinar del Rio-Cuba. He began his ballet training at the age of 10 at the Vocational School of Arts where he studied for five years. In 1987, he was accepted into the National Ballet School in Habana. After 3 years he received his Dancer & Teacher Certificate from the Cuban School of Ballet. In 1993, he joined the Ballet Clasico de la Habana (formerly Joven Guardia under the direction of Laura Alonzo).
Mr. Molina competed at the 1998 USA International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Mississippi where he was offered a contract from the renown choreographer and artistic director Denis Nahat to join the Cleveland San Jose Ballet. After two seasons with CSJB, Mr. Molina then joined the Orlando Ballet (formerly Southern Ballet Theatre) under the direction of Fernando Bujones for the 2002-2003 season. He was appointed by Mr. Bujones as Ballet Master of Orlando Ballet. In 2003 Orlando coached Joseph Gatti (Principal Dancer, Boston Ballet) for the YAGP were Mr. Gatti was awarded the Royal Ballet School Scholarship. In 2006 Mr. Orlando coached Joseph Gatti again for the IBC Jackson-MS where Mr. Gatti was awarded the Bronze Medal in the senior division.
In October 2007, Mr. Molina joined Focus Performing Arts Center and Pulse Performing Arts Studio in Orlando, FL as ballet master. He recently coached students to the 2010 NYC YAGP Finals.
Our upper level students enjoyed learning Adagio with Mr. Molina. Enjoy some photos from his classes below. *Click to enlarge
Mr. Molina’s sense of humor helped students remember how difficult a dancer can make it for their partner in adagio if they’re not in the right position.
Mr. Molina is being partnered here by one of his former students, Yosbel Delgado, who is also guest teaching during The Rock School’s summer intensive program.
