Julio Bocca
| Julio Bocca | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
March 6, 1967 Buenos Aires, Argentina |
| Occupation | artistic director |
| Years active | 1982-2007 |
| Former groups | Fundación Teresa Carrreño Teatro Municipal of Río de Janeiro American Ballet Theatre Ballet Argentino |
Julio Bocca (born March 6, 1967) is one of the most important ballet dancers of the later part of the 20th century and arguably the most important Argentine dancer of all time.
Born in the Munro neighborhood of the Greater Buenos Aires, he started ballet lessons at the age of four, and at the age of seven entered the National School of Dance from where he progressed to the Teatro Colón's Advanced Arts Institute a year later.
A prodigiously gifted youngster, he joined the Chamber Ballet Company at the Colón Theatre in 1981, and a year later had already performed as soloist at the Colón in a production directed by Flemming Flindt. In 1985, aged just 18, he won the Gold Medal at the International Ballet Competition in Moscow and was invited to join the American Ballet Theatre by Mikhail Baryshnikov. Though Bocca was a principal dancer with ABT, he enjoyed a lenient contract that allowed him to perform as a guest artists with other companies.
He was much in demand and thrilled audiences at La Scala in Milan, the Paris Opera, the Kirov of Saint Petersburg, the Royal Danish Ballet, the Cuban National Ballet and the National Ballet of Madrid. A performance with the Royal Ballet in London prompted a reviewer with Dance Magazine to rave about "his irresistible combination of passion and gallantry." He even fulfilled his teenage dream by dancing a season with the Bolshoi Ballet.
Since his win at the 1985 International Ballet Competition, Julio Bocca established himself as one of the twentieth century's most renowned dancers. "There's something about his very person that attracts you," a ballet director told Dance Magazine, "not only his great technique and talent, but he dances as if his soul depended on it." He has danth almost every major ballet company, including nearly two decades with the American Ballet Theatre in New York City. Fans say that he can defy gravity, effortlessly fly across the stage, and spin an impossible number of pirouettes all with exacting precision and unbridled passion. "Julio has a magnetism," his artistic director in New York told Dance Magazine. "He's this combination of totally controlled and on the edge." Though the ballet world may adore him, his native Argentina worships him. There he is a superstar easily selling out auditoriums normally reserved for sporting events. His company, Ballet Argentino, is considered a national treasure. Yet for Bocca, fame and fortune is not the point—the dance is. "A good dancer learns to be a dancer," the artistic director of Ballet Argentino told Harper's Bazaar, "but Julio Bocca was born to dance."
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