Guest Artists

Alberto del Saz is the Director of the Nikolais/Louis foundation for Dance. In 1980 Mr. del Saz became the Spanish National Champion in figure skating. His early dance training was received at the Nikolais/Louis Dance Lab from the great teachers of the technique: Hanya Holm, Alwin Nikolais, Murray Louis, Claudia Gitelman. 

In 1985 Mr. del Saz became a lead soloist with the internationally acclaimed Nikolais Dance Theater with whom he has toured to virtually every continent of the globe. Mr. del Saz has appeared for President Reagan at the Kennedy Center Honors, as well as on American Masters series in “Nik and Murray”. He has represented the United States State Department on a tour of India.

In 1990 he went to Japan where he appeared as a guest artist in “V”, a project by Mr. Ushio Amagatsu. 

Mr. del Saz is the reconstruction director of the Nikolais/Louis repertory and has staged the repertory on university and professional dance companies around the world. In 1997 he danced the role Rudolph Nureyev’s role in “Moments” a work created by Mr. Louis. 

Mr. del Saz has been with the Nikolais/Louis Foundation for 37 years, at the moment his focus is in preserving the Nikolais/Louis technique, repertory and legacy through his teaching and directing.

Marta Renzi, director and choreographer, has created over 25 short films which have showed in festivals all over, and in 2017 completed her first feature film, Her Magnum Opus. Awarded by Dancing in the Streets as “a fearless explorer of unconventional sites", Renzi was commissioned in the 80's by to make 2 half-hour video dances for PBS. To date she has been commissioned to make 6 dance films with college dance companies: 3 at Rhode Island College; 2 at Slippery Rock University, and Skybridge at Hunter College. Funded 7 times by the NEA, Renzi is a 2013 Bogliasco Fellow, a 2016 RAW Artist and more recently, a 2019 Artist Fellow at the Norman Bird Sanctuary in Rhode Island. http://martarenzi.blogspot.com

Pedro Ruiz is a celebrated choreographer and internationally recognized dancer. Ruiz is the recipient of The Bessie Award, the Choo-San Goh Award, The Cuban Artist’s Fund Award and The Joyce Foundation Award. The FBI honored Ruiz for his Public Service during 2012’s Hispanic Heritage Month. Mr. Ruiz has performed at the White House for several presidents. In 2010, Ruiz founded The Windows Project—agroundbreaking cultural exchange program celebrating the art of dance between the U.S. and Cuba. Ruiz has been the subject of two PBS documentaries: Pas de Deux (part of the “In The Life” series), and Coming Home, nominated for a NY Emmy Award. Ruiz’s highly successful ballet, Club Havana, was featured in Lincoln Center at the Movies: Great American Dance. And Ruiz’s celebrated poetic duet, Lasting Embrace, premiered in the US in July 2016 at the Dancers Responding to AIDS Dance Festival on Fire Island and at Marymount Manhattan College. In 2019 under the auspices of the ¡Cuba Aquí! Festival, the Ballet Contemporáneo de Camagűey from Cuba made its American debut at Hunter College’s Kaye Playhouse on March 13th bringing a joyful, exuberant program of three dances by their Cuban-American artistic director Pedro Ruiz. 

For more information, visit www.thewindowsproject.org

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