Promotion De Deux

The students have become the professionals. A year after Luis Mondragon, 22, from Monterrey, Mexico, and Gabriele Pacca, 20, from Rome, arrived in Sarasota as students in the Sarasota Ballet’s Margaret Barbieri Conservatory of Dance, they are now professional ballet dancers in Sarasota Ballet’s company of dancers.

Mondragon and Pacca never thought of Sarasota when thinking of their futures in dance as teenagers. The two started ballet at ages 16 and 12, respectively, and were more familiar with the big-name cities such as Los Angeles, Miami and New York City.

“I don’t think people really realize that such an important company is in the middle of Sarasota,” says Mondragon. “To have Margaret Barbieri and Iain Webb here is the craziest and wonderful thing about this company.”

Mondragon came to Sarasota after graduating from the Ballet Academy at the Vienna State Opera in Austria, and Pacca heard about the Sarasota conservatory program while participating at a Joffrey Ballet School dance intensive in New York City. After hearing about the program in Sarasota, Pacca sent in a video tape audition.

The two’s past year included almost daily practice with the regular ballet corps, led by Barbieri and Webb, along with the company’s other ballet masters, Pavil Fomin and James Jordan. With the Sarasota Ballet’s conservatory entering its fourth year of existence, Mondragon and Pacca are following Caroline Hennekes (currently an apprentice in the ballet company) as some of the first alumni to be promoted from the conservatory to the main company.

“The promotion of Gabriele Pacca directly to corps de ballet is exciting, and I’m thrilled to see Luis advance to the apprentice level,”  says Barbieri, conservatory director. “We are pleased to see the growth and success of our students, and the transition of Caroline, Gabriele and Luis in to the company is a direct reflection of the preparedness students receive from the program.”

Mondragon will become an apprentice and Pacca a member of the corps de ballet just in time for the ballet’s 25th anniversary season next fall.

“The conservatory was a bridge between the school life and the company life,” says Pacca.

Mondragon was surrounded by professional artists while growing up. With two opera singer aunts, a cellist uncle in Mexico’s National Symphony Orchestra and a cousin who is a ballerina in Mexico’s national ballet, Mondragon was always surrounded by the fine arts. And it was his cousin who opened the door to the world of ballet. She enlisted him as a non-dancing extra in “The Nutcracker.” The director of the ballet’s school spied him in rehearsal and recruited him for a class.

“My family is very happy about my promotion,” says Mondragon, “because they think dancers don’t have jobs, and they’re happy I’m in such a great place.”

For Pacca, his inspiration and exposure to dance was more internal.

“Ballet was something I was born with,” says Pacca. “When I was little, my mother told me I was always dancing.”

When Pacca was 3 years old his family lived near a ballet studio in Rome. He heard the music and led his mom into the studio. He was entranced by the dancers leaping and jumping.

“I decided if I was the only guy in my school, I didn’t care,” says Pacca. “I wanted to do it.”

His father wasn’t initially supportive, but after his family saw him perform for the first time as a teen, his family backed his natural talent.

The two are excited for their first season in the company and are looking forward to learning more from their fellow dancers.

“That’s in a dancer’s nature,” says Mondragon. “There’s always room for improvement. We look up to the principals, and I know next season is an anniversary so there’s going to be an amazing repertory.”