Sarasota Cuban Ballet School Artistic Director Ariel Serrano is the Co-Director of the Gulfcoast Studio Company. A native of Oriente, Cuba, Mr. Serrano trained with Cuba’s National School of Ballet system. He concluded his studies in 1990 at the National School of Arts in Italy. Upon his return to Cuba, he danced with Ballet Camagüey under the direction of Fernando Alonso, and then joined the Youth Corps of the National Ballet of Cuba under Laura Alonso and artistic director Alicia Alonso. Next, he became a principal dancer with the Ballet de Monterrey in Mexico. In 1993, he and his wife, Wilmian Hernández, defected from Cuba. A year later, they were invited to join The Sarasota Ballet, then under the direction of Robert de Warren, where they both danced principal roles until their retirement in 2000. In 2011, Serrano and Hernández co-founded the Sarasota Cuban Ballet School, the first school in the United States to exclusively teach the Cuban training method to all proficiency levels, from beginners to pre-professional.