ICB Board Members
Jolinda Menendez
Faculty, New York University/Tisch School of the Arts
As a former ballerina with American Ballet Theatre, she has performed leading roles in La Bayadere, Giselle, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Les Sylphides, The Firebird, Raymonda Act III, and other repertoire by choreographers such as Alvin Ailey, Agnes de Mille, Kenneth MacMillan and Glen Tetley. Lewis Segal of the L.A. TIMES said: “Jolinda’s performance of ‘The Dying Swan’ was dance poetry – a quality Pavlova’s name has always symbolized – you could understand why Natalia Makarova has championed her as a major artist.” Anna Kisselgoff of the New York Times reviewed one of her Metropolitan Opera performances saying “It is hard to imagine two dancers reaching so deeply into the emotional and lyrical core of Swan Lake unless one brings back memories of Fonteyn & Nureyev.” Following ABT she was Principal Ballerina with the Bavarian National Ballet in Munich, Germany, where she added to her repertoire John Cranko's Romeo and Juliet, Eugene Onegin and Taming of the Shrew, John Neumeier's Nutcracker, Birgit Cullberg's Miss Julie, and Balanchine's Apollo and Divertimento No. 15. She has been a frequent guest artist in Europe, Canada, Australia, and South Africa. She is on the faculty at NYU/Tisch School of the Arts and is a frequent guest teacher with companies and schools including the Royal Ballet School in London, English National Ballet School, American Ballet Theatre’s summer intensives, Houston Ballet’s Ben Stevenson Academy, Joffrey Ballet School, Scottish Ballet Company and Ballet Ireland. She will be a guest teacher at the National Ballet School of Canada in late 2010 and with the American Academy of Dance in Paris early the following year. Ms. Menendez also coaches privately students and professionals.