Tina Ramirez: 19(?)(?)—: Dancer, Choreographer, Educator Biography

Tina Ramirez: 19(?)(?)—: Dancer, choreographer, educator.

Tina Ramirez has managed to bring Hispanic culture to the forefront of mainstream dance through the creation of Ballet Hispanico, a renowned Hispanic-American dance company and school. After years of training as a dancer, choreographer, and teacher, Ramirez realized her dream of blending contemporary American dance and Hispanic culture to create an outlet for arts education and cultural unity. The result has been a phenomenally successful organization that has allowed her to represent the Hispanic community through dance.

Tina Ramirez, whose birth year is unknown, was born on November 7 in Caracas, Venezuela, to José, a prominent Mexican bullfighter, and Cestero, a Puerto Rican who came from a family of educators. They had two other daughters: Katty and Coco. Ramirez's parents divorced when she was five years old and her mother sent the girls to stay with relatives in Puerto Rico and then on to New York City with their grandmother. Ramirez's mother would soon follow—laboring jobs were plentiful in New York and she needed to find work to support her three daughters. Ramirez moved in with a great aunt in the Bronx when she first arrived at age six because her grandmother could not take care of all the girls, but once her mother arrived, the family moved into an apartment at 114th Street and 3rd Avenue in Manhattan, an area commonly known as El Barrio or Spanish Harlem.