Eduardo Vilaro’s arrival in August as Ballet Hispanico’s new artistic director marked a homecoming on two levels. He grew up in New York City, his family having arrived from Havana when he was six years old, and performed with Ballet Hispanico for nearly a decade. So he was ideally positioned to the challenging task of taking over the reins following the retirement of Tina Ramirez, the troupe’s founder. She launched Ballet Hispanico in 1970 to celebrate and explore the range of Hispanic forms and influences in dance. She built it into a distinctive, respected organization that tours widely in addition to its annual two-week Joyce Theater season, and has an influence beyond performances, through its busy Upper West Side school. 

Vilaro, who had been based in Chicago since leaving Ballet Hispanico in 1995, worked closely with Ramirez during his years with the company, not only as a dancer, but someone involved in the organization’s educational programs. He has a clear sense of the company’s distinctive purpose. “The work will always have some kind of tie to the Latino and Hispanic diaspora. That is part of the vision, part of the mission,” he said during a recent phone interview.  “As a very urbanized Latino, I want to explore that cultural dialogue. We’re much more than what we bring from our iconographic traditional forms, I want to bring some voices together that will explore what that means. Some voices might really need to celebrate the past, and there might be some works that are very accessible – and also very similar to those traditions that we know. And then there will be some that might be not so accessible.”

The company’s tour schedule has been so full that Vilaro has spent about three weeks in town since assuming the directorship Aug. 1. The itinerary included a week at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, and recently, when he found time for a phone interview, it was performing in St. Thomas. Amid this whirlwind, Vilaro did have time to put his own personal stamp on the repertory for the Joyce season, which opens Dec. 1. He has commissioned new works from two interesting choreographers who have not worked with the company before: Andrea Miller and Ron de Jesús, and added an existing work by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, a Dutch choreographer of Colombian heritage whom he expects to work further with the company. He has also revived two works from the period when he was performing with the troupe that he considers “seminal pieces.”

Vilaro’s interesting choices to choreograph the premieres are both familiar to New York dance audiences from other contexts. Andrea Miller’s bold, gripping work for Gallim Dance has made a strong impression in the short time she has had her company. Vilaro had encountered her choreography in Chicago, and hoped to include a work by her in the repertory of Luna Negra Dance Theater, the 10-year-old company he founded and directed there. “Her work is really gorgeous and powerful. As soon as I got here, I was able to finagle her.” Miller’s mother is from Spain, of Sephardic background, and Nací, her new work for eight dancers, explores Sephardic culture reflecting the eclectic religions and origins found in Spain.

Ron de Jesús was a stellar dancer with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago for many years. He excelled in the company’s Twyla Tharp repertory, and went on to perform the role of Tony in Tharp’s Movin’ Out on Broadway. He has established himself as a choreographer in recent years, but little of his work has been seen in New York. “He’s choreographed a lot in Europe and in Chicago. I just love his athleticism, and I wanted to bring a work that would show a little bit of the power of Latin dancing, in a very contemporary fashion. It’s a collaboration with Oscar Hernandez. His score, for percussion and piano, will be played live, and it incorporates different folk rhythms. Ron wanted to juxtapose some very contemporary work with the very traditional folk music.”

Vilaro sounds excited when he discusses Ochoa, whose choreography he included in Luna Negra’s repertory. “I felt that her work has a very comic Latin edge, a tongue-in-cheek quality that she uses sometimes. Although her work is not iconographically Colombian, she has an essence.” In her duet, Locked Up Laura, a longstanding partnership, forged through the daily discipline of dance, faces the moment when one partner loses artistic focus. 

So, this promises to be an invigorating Ballet Hispanico season, one that demonstrates the new directions in which Vilaro’s leadership may take the company. He was hired with a mandate “to put my own vision on the company. Although it’s different, there’s a direct lineage, and a direct connection to what Tina was doing.”

Ballet Hispanico

Dec. 1 through 13, Joyce Theater, 175 8th Ave. (at W. 19th St.), 212-242-0800 or www.joyce.org; times vary, $10-$59.