The Company of Western Ballet Theatre
Mayaguez has always been a centre for culture and the arts. Now Mayaguez has its own professional ballet company, the Western Ballet Theatre of Puerto Rico, founded by Nana Badrena, Howard Phillips and Lcdo. Harry Padilla in 2005, and incorporated as a non-by-profit organisation. Its aim is to put on theatre productions of ballet and dance in and around the Mayaguez area, San Juan and the rest of the island. In addition, dancers from WBT have performed in productions in Republica Dominicana, Miama, Pennsylvania and elsewhere thus helping to put Mayaguez on the international map.
The company works with a number of advanced students from the Western Ballet Theatre School, taking principal roles, with occasional professional principals from the mainland and elsewhere, supported by a corps de ballet drawn from the school.
Since the official opening in the spring of 2006, Western Ballet Theatre has presented eleven full length ballets, three repertory concerts, four International Summer Workshop concerts and Western Ballet School concerts (as of january 2010). From "Coppelia" in 2006 to "Giselle", "Dracula" and "Christmas Carol" in 2009, WBT continues to bring dramatic ballet theatre productions to the west end of Puerto Rico (Porta del Sol), and in 2010 Western Ballet has been chosen to present "Don Quijote" and a new ballet "Amanda" to the VIPs of the 2010 Caribbean and Central American Games, as well as participating in the "Welcome the Flame" proceedings in Aguadilla.