Founder of Luna Negra Dance Theater, Eduardo Vilaro was born in Havana, Cuba, and immigrated to New York City where he grew up in the Bronx. He received his dance training at the Alvin Ailey American Dance School and the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance and then received a BFA in Dance from Adelphi University in 1988. Vilaro was a principal dancer with Ballet Hispanico of New York where he taught and performed until 1996. Under the mentorship of Tina Ramirez, Vilaro developed as an educator by creating and implementing outreach and education programs in New York City. He has taught and toured throughout the United States, Europe, Central and South America, and the Middle East.

"We can thank Eduardo Vilaro and his beguiling dancers for reshaping flashy stereotypes into exquisite movement poems of heartfelt complexity.” - Lucia Mauro, Chicago Tribune

In 1999, after receiving a Master's degree from Columbia College, his passion for his heritage and dance led him to establish Luna Negra Dance Theater. Vilaro’s work with Luna Negra is devoted to capturing the spiritual, sensual and historical essence of the Latino culture. He creates work that explores through contemporary dance Latino cultures’ racially and ethnically diverse movements, as well as music of Latin and Caribbean countries in fresh ways that speak to modern audiences. The result “is something rich and irresistible, with choreography that is exceptionally fluid, dramatic and revealing,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times. His work often includes collaborating with artists of other disciplines and he has created works with artists such as Afro-Peruvian singer Susana Baca, visual artist Luis De La Torre, and soprano Harolyn Blackwell.

Vilaro has also received commissions to create works for other arts organizations such as the Ravinia Festival, the Chicago Sinfonietta, the Lexington Ballet, New Jersey Dance Theater Ensemble, the Civic Ballet, and Same Planet, Different World. In 2001, he was a recipient of a Ruth Page Award in choreography and in 2003, he was honored at Panama's II International Festival of Ballet for his choreographic work. Vilaro has been on the faculty of the Dance Center of Columbia College and the Chicago Academy of the Arts. He currently serves on the board directors of Dance/USA.