Fernando Bujones

American ballet dancer

• Born: March 9, 1955
• Birthplace: Miami, Florida
• Died: November 10, 2005
• Place of death: Miami, Florida

Bujones’s precise, classical execution of ballet performances in the Romantic tradition brought distinction to the American Ballet Theater, burnishing its reputation in the United States and around the world. He was the first male ballet star primarily trained in the United States and led the way for a generation of Latino dancers in the country.

Early Life

Although he was born in Miami, Florida, Fernando Bujones (boo-HOH-nehs) spent his early childhood in Cuba. Because he was sickly as a child, doctors recommended physical exercise. His mother, a dancer, tutored him in ballet, supported by the noted Cuban choreographer Alicia Alonso and a cousin who was a ballet professional. His family returned to live in Miami, where Bujones made his stage debut at ten years of age in a production of The Nutcracker.

On a visit to Florida, the New York City ballet star Jacques d’Amboise, saw the twelve-year-old Bujones dance and recommended that he enter the School of American Ballet in New York. Bujones financed his studies with scholarships and grants, training with leading dancers such as Stanley Williams and André Eglevsky. He debuted in Carnegie Hall at age fifteen.

Life’s Work

The noted choreographer and dancer George Balanchine invited Bujones to dance with the New York City Ballet. While that company had the widest repertoire in the country, Bujones opted instead to join the American Ballet Theater (ABT). The ABT allowed him to pursue a wider classical repertoire, dancing romantic lead roles in works such as La Sylphide, Giselle, and La Bayadère. Among the most competitive and prestigious events in ballet is the International Ballet Competition in Varna, Bulgaria. In 1974, Bujones not only won the contest’s gold medal, the first such win by an American, but also received a citation from the head of Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet commending his extraordinary technical achievement. Slight of build, Bujones possessed a suppleness of movement based on precise physical control. He appeared as himself in the 1978 Golden Globe Award-winning ballet drama The Turning Point.

In the same year as Bujones’s triumph in Varma, Mikhail Baryshnikov, the Russian ballet star, fled the Soviet Union and settled in New York. Bujones considered the Russian to have an inferior technique to his own and lamented the exaggerated publicity the defector received. However, in 1980, Baryshnikov became artistic director of the American ballet Theater; Bujones left the company five years later and began a series of freelance engagements. During the 1980’s, Bujones performed roles in Twyla Tharp’s Bach Partita and Maurice Béjart’s Trois études pour Alexandre. In 1989, new management at the American Ballet Theater requested he return as a guest artist. Bujones gave his farewell performance with the company in 1995. A number of Latino dancers followed Bujones into the American Ballet Theater, including Carlos Acosta, Julio Bocca, Herman Cornejo, Angel Corella, and Xiomara Reyes, supplanting an earlier vogue of Russian dancers.

Bujones married Márcia Kubitschek (1943-2000), the daughter of the former president of Brazil, Juscelino Kubitschek, in 1980. They had one child, Alejandra; Márcia had two daughters from a previous marriage. The couple divorced in 1988. Bujones’s second marriage was to the Peruvian-born dancer Maria Arnillas. He met her at the Boston Ballet, where he was a leading guest artist from 1987 to 1993 after a short stint with the Joffrey Ballet. Throughout his career, Bujones danced with more than sixty companies in more than thirty countries. Among his leading ballerina partners were Margot Fonteyn, Cynthia Gregory, Gelsey Kirkland, and Natalia Makarova.

The great challenge in the life of a ballet dancer is to make the transition from performer to director. In 1998, Bujones received the A Life for the Dance Award from the International Ballet Festival of Miami; two years later, he became head of the Orlando Ballet (then known as the Southern Ballet Theatre). The appointment followed brief, frustrating periods with companies in Tampa, Florida, and Jackson, Mississippi. Bujones significantly improved the technical quality, training, and range of offerings of the Orlando Ballet. While still heading the company, he died of lung cancer and melanoma in 2005.

Significance

Bujones excelled as a dancer because of his precisely executed body movement, limpid buoyancy, and dramatic sensitivity. His bravura performances burnished the reputation of the American Ballet Theater and enhanced the roles of the numerous star ballerinas with whom he was partnered. Although his life was relatively short, Bujones established the reputation and precedent of Latino distinction in male ballet. His discipline and commanding technique allowed him to perform brilliantly in a multitude of venues around the world.

Bibliography

Barnes, Clive. “Attitudes.” Dance Magazine (April, 2006). In this obituary, the noted dance and theater critic Barnes cites Bujones as among the first major Latino dancers to contribute to the development of American ballet.

Bujones, Fernando, and Zeida Cecilia-Mendez. Fernando Bujones: An Autobiography with Memories by Family and Friends. Doral, Fla.: Higher Education and Technology Consultants, 2009. A posthumously published “autobiography” of Bujones by his cousin and longtime collaborator that emphasizes his life as a trajectory to success and superstardom. Supported amply with photographs.

Eichenbaum, Rose, and Aron Hirt-Manheimer. “Fernando Bujones” in The Dancer Within: Intimate Conversations with Great Dancers. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2008. Interview given in 2004 in which Bujones, then head of the Orlando Ballet, traces the main points in the development of his personal and professional life.

Torres, Neri, et al. “Latins: A Moving Force.” Dance Magazine, June, 2005. Delineates the role of Latino performers in the development of modern American dance and ballet.