• ROLANDO Thorndike, one of the most faithful exponents of the technique of Cuban contemporary dance in which generations of national and foreign dancers have been trained, has been recognized with the National Dance Prize 2009.

Conferred for the first time in 1998 on prima ballerina assoluta Alicia Alonso, this year’s award honors a career initiated in 1953 in which Thorndike’s mastery, demonstrated in 82 choreographies, has been paramount. He has also appeared in nine films, visited more than 45 countries and participated in 26 festivals together with the Danza Contemporánea de Cuba (DCC).

Critics, maestros and dancers consider the technical producer, first dancer, choreographer and professor at the DCC as the living memory of this manifestation on the island and a bridge between the legacy of its founders and those who have sustained the company during its 50 years of existence.

He made his professional début in the ballet Cimarrón, by the eminent Cuban choreographer Alberto Alonso and, 12 months later, joined the DCC national company, where he is still to be found.

In 1979 he began to work as a choreographer with Ireme, and proceeded to to design a total of 27 pieces, fundamentally for the DCC, the cinema and television. His best remembered choreographies include Rombos y la ofrenda, Balada de Simón Caraballo and El rapto de las mulatas, the last based on the painting by the eminent Cuban painter Carlos Enrique Gómez.

Isidro Rolando Thorndike has received many awards including the National Culture and Alejo Carpentier Prizes, and the Espejo de Paciencia and Nicolás Guillén Diplomas. The is also a founder member of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) and the Dance Faculty of the Higher Institute of Arts, and assistant professor in that specialty.