Brunilda Ruiz

Ruiz was born in Rincón, Puerto Rico, and raised in Spanish Harlem in New York City.[1][2] She had four sisters and two brothers.[3] Ruiz started dancing at age 12.[3] She attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts, where Robert Joffrey taught her ballet.[2]

In 1956, Joffrey chose Ruiz to be one of the six original Joffrey Ballet members.[2] Ruiz was the youngest of the group, which also included Gerald Arpino, Glen Tetley, Beatrice Tompkins, Dianne Consoer, and John Wilson (to whom Ruiz was married from 1956 to 1967).[1][2][4] With the Joffrey Ballet, Ruiz toured the country, performing one-night-only shows and introducing ballet as an art form to audiences across the United States.[1][2] When Rebekah Harkness, patron of the Joffrey Ballet, disputed with Joffrey in the 1960s, the company split; Ruiz joined the newly formed Harkness Ballet.[1][4] She returned briefly to the Joffrey Balleytin 1968.[1] As a performer, Ruiz toured internationally, dancing in Europe, the Soviet Union, Middle East, and India.[2]

After retiring from performance in 1971, Ruiz taught and choreographed as associate director of the Baron Ballet in Waldwick, New Jersey, from 1976 to 1983.[2] She served as ballet mistress with the Milwaukee Ballet from 1983 to 1986, and taught at LaGuardia, her alma mater, from 1986 until her retirement in 2001.[2] She also taught at the Joffrey Ballet School-American Ballet Center in New York.[4]

Ruiz married Joffrey principal dancer Paul Sutherland in 1968.[2] She had two daughters, Mhari Wilson and Alicia Sutherland.[1] In 1995, Ruiz earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the State University of New York Empire State College.[2]

Ruiz died in her home in Waldwick, New Jersey, on August 13, 2019, at the age of 83.[1]