Upon graduation, Aponte was enrolled on scholarship to the trainee program of the Harkness Ballet School.
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Shortly after his debut, Aponte entered the Harkness Ballet Company (1) and rose to become principal dancer.
In the 1960s, he served as the rehearsal accompanist and concert pianist for the Harkness Ballet and also worked in the studios of many of the era’s leading ballet instructors.
At the age of fifteen, Marina joined the Harkness Ballet Company and launched her own successful dance career.
American Ballet Theatre | New York City Ballet | ballet | National Ballet of Canada | Joffrey Ballet | San Francisco Ballet | Bolshoi Ballet | Pacific Northwest Ballet | Royal Danish Ballet | Boston Ballet | Houston Ballet | School of American Ballet | Royal Winnipeg Ballet | Milwaukee Ballet | Stuttgart Ballet | Paris Opera Ballet | Mariinsky Ballet | Don Quixote (ballet) | The Royal Ballet | Spandau Ballet | Atlanta Ballet | Royal Swedish Ballet | Royal Ballet School | Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre | Harkness Ballet | Cincinnati Ballet | Ballet | Richmond Ballet | Oregon Ballet Theatre | Norwegian National Opera and Ballet |
After conducting the Halifax Symphony Orchestra for a year, Sternberg directed the Royal Flemish Opera for five years, subsequently returning to the US to become music director and conductor of the Harkness Ballet.
Alongside the best local troupes, choreographers and soloists, Dubrovnik has been visited by Merce Cunningham, Jerome Robbins, Alvin Ailey, Glenn Tetley and Martha Graham and their companies, the Twentieth Century Ballet of Maurice Bejart, the American Ballet Theatre, the London Festival Ballet, the Harkness Ballet, the Antonio Gades troupe, the ballet of the Hungarian State Opera, and ballets from the cities of Parma, Antwerp and Adelaide.
He was also concertmaster of four major ballet companies—the Pennsylvania Ballet from Philadelphia, the New York City Center Ballet, the Harkness Ballet of New York and the National Ballet of Canada in Toronto where he did all of the solo work for Rudolf Nureyev.