The Rosario Cardenas Dance Company was founded in Cuba in 1989 by its main choreographer and general director Rosario Cárdenas, after 20 years of experience in the National Company of Contemporary Dance of Cuba. The company maintains a constant research of action, working with the mind/body as a somatic whole. Choreographies like Del Espectro Nocturno, Bajo raices, Noctario, María Viván, Ouroborus, La Stravaganza, Zona-Cuerpo, among others, have been shared with the public at national and international events.
The company has participated in multiple national and international festivals, including the IV International Contemporary Dance Festival in San Luis Potosí, the Dance Festival of Leon, Guanajuato; the Second Season of Latin American Dance, Caracas, Venezuela, the XIX International Theatre Festival of the East, Barcelona, Venezuela and shows in the Fine Arts Theater of Maracaibo, the IV International Workshop of Expression and Creativity in Maracaibo, and the School of Funda Danza of Cunamá.
The company has participated in festivals in Australia, like the Sydney Art Festival, the Australian International Workshop Festival in Adelaide, and the Adelaide Fringe Festival. The company was also part of the opening ceremony for the Latin American Film Festival in Sydney in 1995.
In 1998 the company participated in the V Festival of Culture of Potosí, Bolivia. In 1999 the company was invited to the Prime Minister’s Independence Gala in Jamaica where it performed in Montego Bay and Kingston alongside prominent Jamaican artists like Sheryl Lee Ralph, Monty Alexander, Ernie Ranglin and Beenie Man.
The company has also performed in Spain, participating in 1998 in the Madrid en Danza Festival during which it performed in six cities around the country. In 2002 the company premiered the dance piece Verdi en Danza at the Maestranza Theater, Seville, Spain. In 2003 the company participated in the Italica International Contemporary Dance Festival in Seville, with the dance piece Dador performed by Spanish and Cuban dancers.
The company participated in the SiDance 2004, 7th Seoul International Dance Festival in South Korea, in the World Festival of Dance, Solo and Duet, Caracas, Venezuela, and in the Sziget Festival, Budapest, Hungary, 2005.
In 2009 the company presented a program with the pieces: Combinatoria en guaguancó, El ascenso y La Stravaganza , in the San Francisco Theater, Hidalgo, México, as part of the 12th International Encounter of Contemporary Scene, Transversales, 2009. The company premiered the dance piece Zona-Cuerpo in March of 2010 and participated with this piece in the Second Bienal of Caribbean Dance celebrated in Havana, and in 2011 in the International Festivals of Contemporary Dance of Badajoz, Madrid Sur, and the Ibero-American International Theater Festival in Cadiz, Spain 2011. In 2012 the company participated again in the World Festival of Dance, Solo and Duet, Caracas, Venezuela where the choreographer Rosario Cárdenas gave master classes on her combinatorial technique of movement. She has also shown her work in Bolivia, Mexico, Jamaica, Venezuela, Hungry, France, Nicaragua, Spain, Puerto Rico and Australia among other places.
The company is the principal host of the Biodance encounters that have taken place in Cuba.
Rosario Cárdenas (Havana, 1953) in one of the most well respected names in the world of Cuban choreography, since the late 1980s. She is one of the first artists to create her own independent dance company. She is a graduate of the National School of Dance in Havana, and the Superior Institute of Art in Cuba. She holds the title of Professor of Contemporary Dance from the State of France (Ministry of Culture of France). Developing a style of dance that ventures into American Modernism as well as traditional Latin American culture. Her artistic and educational career is tied to a rich investigation of movement.
Rosario Cárdenas is the originator of a technique of movement, La combinatoria, and the methodology of teaching choreography based on improvisation and composition, which she shares around the world through workshops and conferences. She has created over ninety pieces with her company and other national and international institutions. Rosario Cárdenas has conducted, at the University of Paris VIII, a theoretical and practical research project about the competence and specificities of Cuban contemporary dance. She is the choreographer, professor, and general director of the Rosario Cárdenas Company based in Havana, Cuba. As an artistic director and choreographer, she is recognized as one of the most talented dance artists in Cuba. The Rosario Cárdenas Company has developed its unique color in a circumstance that Latin dance and classic ballet are the mainstream of the country’s dance scene. The Ministry of Culture of Cuba gave her the “National Culture Award” given to outstanding artists, an award given to the most distinguished artists of the nation. She also received the Diploma Nicolás Guillén from the Union of writers and artists of Cuba (UNEAC) for her distinguished merits and her influence on the development of Cuban art and literature. Her creative activities have been favorably received both by audiences and the press as: “An exploratory technique which unravels the African-Cuban roots, it tackles space and explores the mathematic system as a means of offering alternatives to movement within contemporary dance”