Yumelia Garcia

Welcome to this sixth edition of NOW NOW. We are recording this on Monday, January 19, 2026. My name is Charlotte Boye-Christensen, Artistic Director of NOW-ID and the host of this podcast.

I am very excited to welcome dancer Yumelia Garcia as our guest today. Yumelia was born in Caracas, Venezuela, where she received her early training at the National Ballet School. She joined the National Ballet of Caracas at the age of 15 and was promoted to soloist just one year later. At 17, Yumelia moved to the United States, where she danced with the Milwaukee Ballet for ten years, followed by engagements with Ballet Florida, and later spent five seasons with the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago. I have had the wonderful opportunity to collaborate with Yumelia on several projects over the years, the first of which was a work titled Conversations, which I choreographed for the Milwaukee Ballet in 2002.