Esteban Andres Cruz

About Esteban Andres Cruz

Esteban Andres Cruz was born in Berwyn and raised in Cicero, Illinois and has been acting since the age of 5. They began their career as Ignorance or Want in a local stage production of A Christmas Carol and the stage has been their home ever since. Raised by a Puerto Rican father and a Mexican mother-Esteban and their 5 brothers grew up in the town made famous by Al Capone and more recently, Joe Montegna. At every holiday and family gathering, Salsa & Merengue were acceptable forms of dance, but ballet was forbidden. In high school Esteban started dancing Mexican Folklorico and joined the theater department. J Sterling Morton East High School boasted a beautiful 2,000 seat auditorium known as the Chodl. Still on the national registry of historic places, the Chodl was host to many touring companies as well as high school productions. Thomas Rusnak who ran the theater, taught Esteban and their peers not only about acting but of all the elements of stage craft and the various parts of creating theater. As a member of both the Tech Guild and Thespian Society, Esteban performed in the schools plays and musicals and then also had several jobs and in all aspects of the theatre.It was also in high school that Esteban began their career as a dancer, choreographer and singer. After finally being allowed to go and study with Deeply Rooted Dance Theatre at the Fine Arts Building in Chicago and winning a full scholarship to the school, Esteban began their training in concert dance. After 6 months of study with Deeply Rooted, Esteban was promoted to the second company and began their professional dance career. Working in the company, Esteban started to choreograph. First for other dancers, then for their high school and finally working in Chicago's storefront theater scene-at age 17. Esteban won the AFTER DARK AWARD for BEST CHOREOGRAPHY as a senior in high school. Esteban later continued their work as a choreographer and movement director, specifically setting movement on actors who are not trained dancers for the stage and later the screen. Also at the Fine Arts building Esteban began to train in Italian art songs and German Lieder, singing Schubert and Schuman as well as Beethoven and Brahms. They trained with the Wagnerian tenor Robert Berthold for years beyond high school and college.College took them to the dance conservatory Barat, where they studied for two years under Eileen Cropley (Paul Taylor Company/Paul Taylor's partner...creating the lineage to Martha Graham-Esteban is a "3rd Generation Graham Dancer"). Though they majored in dance, they still performed as an actor and minored in classical music-singing and playing piano. Their love for jazz music also started to flourish at this time. After two years at conservatory, Esteban continued their studies in dance (Limon, Horton, Cunningham) at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. They also sang with the University Big Band and several small combos. Falling in love with the English Department, they finished their studies with a degree in Rhetoric (creative writing; creative non-fiction and prose poetry) and a minor in Dance. Writing and assistant teaching in Feminism and Chicana Feminist Theory took over most of their studies but Esteban continued to perform in the dance department, in theatre productions and became a principal dancer with the Champaign-Urbana Ballet.They joined the corps de ballet of the Cincinnati Ballet after college and after a season moved to Chicago. In Chicago...

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Zadruga 4 - Jovana i Karić skrenuli od strasti, ljubili se i palacali jezicima - 12.03.2021.

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