Ivana Bueno, a 21-year-old Mexican ballet dancer, is steadily carving out a career in the United Kingdom.
On Tuesday it was announced that Bueno, who studied dance in Córdoba, Veracruz, was the recipient of the annual Emerging Dancer Award presented by the English National Ballet, the company to which she belongs.
For the first time, the 11th annual competition was held online as six finalists performed a classic pas de deux and contemporary duets for socially distanced judges, while the English National Ballet Philharmonic accompanied them from a studio elsewhere in the company’s East London headquarters.
“Congratulations to Ivana Bueno for winning the Emerging Dancer Award,” renowned choreographer Graham Watts tweeted upon learning of the announcement.
“It is an indescribable emotion because it is the culmination of her efforts and sacrifices that this beautiful ballet career requires, which leads to growing fast, to being self-sufficient, to putting up with being away from home,” Bueno’s mother, Lorena Garcés said upon learning her daughter had won. “She has been away since last summer but from here we share her achievements and joy.”
Bueno, who was born in McAllen, Texas, in 1999, began studying dance at Córdoba’s Fomento Artístico Cordobés dance studio, a small academy owned by her aunt, Martha Sahagún. She was offered a dance scholarship and moved to Monaco in 2014 where she graduated from the Princess Grace Academy, joining the English National Ballet in 2018 where her first appearance was in Wayne Eagling’s The Nutcracker.
Ivana’s sister, Anais Bueno who is 11 years her senior, is also a ballet dancer. She won the Youth American Grand Prix, the largest student competition in the world, at age 13, and spent a decade in Germany before joining the Boston Ballet in 2012, and then the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago in 2013.
Also dancing for the English National Ballet in London is fellow Mexican Isaac Hernández of Guadalajara. The 30-year-old joined the company in 2015 and is lead dancer, the first Mexican to be awarded that honor.
Source: Reforma (sp)
