FIVE ELVES OF INTEREST
65
SEASON OF CELEBRATION
BY JANIE GOULD
A married couple, one of whom never celebrated
Christmas until he was grown, will stage one of the
holiday season’s most beloved spectacles, “The Nutcracker,”
at the Sunrise Theatre in downtown Fort
Pierce on Dec. 10 at 7:30 p.m.
Rogelio Corrales, a ballet master and director of the St. Lucie
Ballet, was born in Cuba, where the Castro regime had banned
observances of Christmas and Thanksgiving. Nothing festive
or religious was allowed in the Cuba that Corrales knew, not
Christmas trees, carols, church or shopping. He got just an inkling
of the holiday season from his parents and grandparents,
when they reminisced among themselves about life in Cuba
before the Communists seized power in 1959.
“I remember growing up I found a Christmas decoration in
my house. I asked my father, what is this? It was so shiny. Is it
a toy or what?”
But Corrales’ wife, Lydia Oquendo, also director of the St.
Lucie Ballet and a dancer, teacher and choreographer, was
born in Miami to Puerto Rican parents. Her Miami family celebrated
Christmas in a big way, complete with presents from
Santa Claus. Her relatives in Puerto Rico also celebrated Three
Kings Day on Jan. 6. Also known as the Feast of the Epiphany,
it marks the date when Christians believe the three wise men
visited the infant Jesus in Bethlehem.
“When my little cousins in Puerto Rico were young, they
would put straw in a shoebox under their beds, and that was another
time they would get presents,” she said. “In the morning
supposedly the camels would have eaten the hay and the kings
would leave gifts. They got presents from Santa Claus and from
the three wise men. Festivities in Puerto Rico go on and on!”
Corrales graduated from the National School of Ballet in
Havana in 1991, and after performing with ballet companies
in Venezuela, immigrated in 1994 to Miami, where he met
Oquendo at a dance audition. She had trained with the Miami
International Ballet and formed her own company, New
Century Ballet. Her numerous performance credits include appearances
on the Latin television station Univision and in the
troupe “Pirouettes” for the Cunard cruise line. Corrales has
performed with the Miami International Ballet, Palm Beach
Ballet Centre, Sarasota Ballet and for many other companies.
In 1998, the couple traded sunshine for snow and moved to
Minnesota. Oquendo performed, taught and choreographed
for the School of Minnesota Ballet and Minnesota Ballet, and
her husband was principal dancer with the Minnesota Ballet.
They moved back to Florida in 2004 to operate their own >>
Dancers perform in the snowflake scene in “The Nutcracker.”