Argentine ballet great Julio Bocca, the Baryshnikov of Latin America, is dancing his last dance.
With impassioned leaps and pyrotechnical pirouettes, Bocca enjoyed a 20-year run at the American Ballet Theater. His bold Ballet Argentino troupe has thrilled audiences worldwide.
But no one is immortal in ballet. Nagged by foot and knee injuries, Bocca realized he could not keep up with the physical demands of his art. "You reach a certain age when it becomes a lot harder," he explains.
And so Bocca will end his dance career where it began _ in Buenos Aires _ closing down the widest avenue in Argentina on Saturday for an open-air performance before thousands.
"It's going to be an amazing performance," Bocca, 40, told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday.
The classically trained Bocca has far outlasted most male dancers, who retire in their late 20s or 30s. He prolonged his dance career by embracing other forms, captivating audiences with tango, contemporary dance and experimental interpretations.
Saturday's performance will show off that trademark versatility, combining tango, folk, classic, jazz and pop. A huge crowd is expected to gather around the stage below the Obelisk, a famed stone spire that is Argentina's traditional rallying point for soccer victories.
It's a fitting send-off for a star who came from a working class neighborhood and brought ballet to the masses. Bocca started ballet lessons at four under the encouraging gaze of his mother, a dance instructor. By seven he advanced to the National School of Dance, then quickly joined the elite ballet program at Argentina's famed Teatro Colon opera house.
At the time, democracy had just returned to Argentina, and people were searching for new role models.
"When Julio began as a dancer, it was right after the dictatorship and people needed idols," says his biographer, Angeline Montoya. "He's also very loved by people because he's the boy next door who reached the top."
Bocca grabbed the world's attention at 18, when he won gold at the International Ballet Competition in Moscow in 1985. Mikhail Baryshnikov, the 1969 winner, was artistic director at the American Ballet Theater, and invited him to join.
"People knew that he was going to be a star when he first began," recalls Rachel Moore, the ABT's executive director. "He was very technically skilled, but he also had such a passion and energy on the stage, especially for someone who was quite young."
Dancing, Bocca explains, is like "making love. It's about finding something new, exciting and passionate."
At the ABT, Bocca found himself in a love affair with the audience as well. They were "warm and loving," he recalls. "I was welcomed with open arms from the very first moment."
Bocca's theatrical style won accolades for his interpretations of Albrecht in "Giselle", Basilio in "Don Quijote" and Romeo in "Romeo y Julieta," especially alongside Italian Alessandra Ferri.
"It's magic _ you can see grand jumps and spins, and you can also tell a complicated story, act out a character, share with the audience poetry and music," he says.
When Bocca performed his last ABT role in "Manon" last year, New York's Metropolitan Opera House went "crazy," Moore recalls. "People were screaming and shouting and throwing flowers ... There must have been about 25 minutes of standing ovation."
Dance critic Anna Kisselgoff wrote in The New York Times that Bocca's technique "can seem superhuman. Yet Mr. Bocca is a deeply emotional dancer, and his performances are never about just the physical thrill that drives audiences into a frenzy."
Few other ballet dancers have filled soccer stadiums. Bocca did this repeatedly in his homeland, drawing more than 80,000 each time to see his arabesques and plies.
Even at 40, Bocca drew sellout crowds to his yearlong farewell tour of 11 nations.
At one performance in Argentina, Bocca didn't just dance, he flew _ soaring with the help of two nearly invisible cables over the audience during "Flight."
Afterward, weeping fans tossed roses at his feet, and Bocca humbly bowed.
Eleonora Cassano, his dance partner for 18 years, says Bocca has had an extraordinary talent for communicating ballet to the masses.
"Julio made ballet something approachable for the general Argentine public, not only for the elite," she says. "If you ask a taxi driver or a bus driver who Julio Bocca is, he knows."
Bocca's theatricality makes that connection _ whether he plays an anguished Romeo or a gum-smacking rough-and-tumble guy interpreting a Frank Sinatra song.
"Many people can dance, but what Julio communicates to the audience with his dance steps, his face, and his body, it's mystical. He's touched by God," says veterinarian Raul Hourcastagne, 59, who drove more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) with his family to see Bocca.
What Bocca wants now, he says, is to become a "normal guy."
Intensely private, he reveals very little about his personal life to the normally prying Argentine media. He said he will no longer dance or choreograph, but will keep managing his Ballet Argentino and running his private Julio Bocca Studio.
He's even talking of opening a school for the arts.
"In 27 years, I've done everything: I've traveled the world and I've danced with the top dance companies," Bocca says. "Everyday that passes I'm more convinced and sure of the decision I've made."
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