Esperanza Alzona

Esperanza Alzona has had an extensive professional dance career as a soloist and principal dancer of the Baltimore Ballet Company, the Center Dance Ensemble, Prince George’s Ballet Company, the Greg Reynolds Dance Company and the American Dance Ensemble of Pittsburgh, along with numerous appearances as a guest artist with various companies in the United States and Italy. An award-winning choreographer, Ms. Alzona holds a teaching diploma from the Royal Academy of Dance, an AA in Humanities & Social Science, a BA in Psychology and an MA in Public Communications. She taught dance, performed and choreographed in northern Italy for six years, and during that period she directed her own contemporary dance company based in Turin. She returned to the USA in 1991 and joined the staff of MMPAC where she continues to set choreography on her students, independent artists and professional dance companies.

Ms. Alzona is a graduate of Leadership Frederick County, and has served as Director of Performing Arts for the Frederick Arts Council, as a Maryland State Arts Council Dance Panelist, Secretary of the U.S. Mid-Atlantic Regional Advisory Panel of the Royal Academy of Dance, and Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Weinberg Center for the Arts, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in Frederick and the TAWA Dance Company.

A nationally-ranked competitive fencer, she holds a rating in both foil and saber. She has fenced for Team USA at the Pan American Veteran Fencing Championships eleven times, earning nineteen medals in individual events.

As a visual artist she has worked as a graphic designer and film photographer. As an arts administrator, she was executive director of the Loudoun Symphony Orchestra for over six years and was operations manager for the Shepherd University School of Music for over seventeen years. In addition to her position as Music Operations Manager at the Shepherd University, she has taught fencing and dance courses as an adjunct professor for the Shepherd University Department of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Sports.

Ms. Alzona is also a sculptor whose work has been widely exhibited regionally and nationally. Working primarily in cast metal and mixed media, her sculptures have received numerous awards in juried exhibitions, and she has received grant funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Maryland State Arts Council, and the Frederick Arts Council.She is a member of the Washington Sculptors Group, the International Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art, American Women Artists, Maryland Federation of Art, the Frederick Arts Council and the Frederick County Art Association.