Sarasota Cuban Ballet

Since the second week in June, dancers from around the globe have been training at Sarasota Cuban Ballet’s annual summer intensive. Now, they’re gearing up for On Stage 2025, a showcase performance at the Sarasota Opera House on July 19. Joining the summer intensive dancers this year are three headliners.

Each year since its founding in 2013, Sarasota Cuban Ballet has been holding an intensive summer training program at its studio on Cattlemen Road. Admission is by audition only, and according to co-founder and instructor Ariel Serrano, this year’s enrollees are a pretty elite group.

This week Gulfshore Opera performs Donizetti's grand opera 'Lucia di Lammermoor,' Gulfshore Ballet performs 'Coppelia," Sarasota Cuban Ballet holds their end of year show and The Sarasota Ballet presents 'Images of Dance.'

This week, Gulfcoast Studio Company of the Sarasota Cuban Ballet will present four performances of 'La Primavera,' celebrating Spring, while Opera Naples screens the last of four documentary films on the Strauss Family.

On a verdant 9-acre wetland preserve in Sarasota is a school and professional company that attracts ballet talent from around the globe. Dancers come to learn the Cuban technique that founders Ariel Serrano and Wilmian Hernandez studied at the Cuban National Ballet School in Havana. Thirteen years after they opened, Sarasota Cuban Ballet is one of the few Cuban technique training centers in the United States.