• Submitted by: lena campos
• Dance
• 08 / 30 / 2012

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Former Cuban ballet dancer and teacher, Mirta Hermida, passed away in Havana on Wednesday as a result of a heart attack.

A teacher and professor of many generations of Cuban, Mexican, Italian ballet dancers and other students from different countries who received training in Cuba, Canada, Italy and Mexico, Hermida taught ballet, ballet repertoire, point and ballet teaching methodology at the National Ballet School at the time of her death.

She was a founding member of Teatro Lírico Nacional or Cuban National Opera Theater, where she began her professional artistic career as a dancer in 1962, and under the guidance of maestro Fernando Alonso, one of the founders of the Cuban National Ballet Company, she was promoted to join the ranks of the Cuban National Ballet Company as a dancer in 1965. Along with her career as a professional ballerina, she began teaching at the National Arts School of Cuba and was the director of the Cuban National Ballet School from 1977 to 1985.

During her long career she received several distinctions, including the Cuban National Culture Order granted by the Council of States of the Republic of Cuba in 1992, she was a nominee for the National Arts Teaching Award in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, a nominee for the National Dance Award in 2008 and was granted the Vignale Danza Plaque in Torino, Italy in 2008.

Source: Radio Habana Cuba