Lupe Serrano Obituary, Death – Lupe Serrano died on Monday. She was a great dancer and teacher, and the ballet world is saddened by her death. Serrano’s 18 years with the American Ballet Theatre (ABT) were marked by her extraordinary strength and virtuosity onstage. After that, she began a successful career as a dance teacher that lasted for 50 years.
Lupe Serrano and Jacques d’Amboise danced the famous Black Swan pas de deux on “The Bell Telephone Hour” in 1960. At the time, both dancers were star principals with American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet, respectively. It was one of the first shows ever to be shown in color on TV. In the past, seeing a performance like this during a one-hour variety show was a big deal that happened once a week. Since then, dance has become much easier to learn because there is so much dance-related content on the internet and on different social media sites.
Now, we can not only watch this movie on YouTube (as many times as we want), but we can also see how these dancers in 1960 started to become the ballet dancers we know today. Watch how, when Serrano and d’Amboise do partnering sequences together, the way they use their backs becomes an important part of how they coordinate and do the steps.
This is true for all of their moves, including Serrano’s rock-solid fouettés and their beautifully buoyant jumps and turns. These examples show how the basics of ballet have stayed the same over the years. This has allowed dancers to build on those basics and push the limits of what their bodies can do. No matter what decade it is, a ballerina’s back will always be one of her best assets. I hope that your #ThrowbackThursday is great!