“Orlando Hernández, a onetime tap prodigy who’s grown into a history-mining experimentalist”
— Brian Seibert, The New Yorker
“Orlando Hernández began the evening with such command of the space, undaunted by the venue size, harkening to something instinctive and ancestral with their sharp performance of mask-clad dancers.”
— Nadia Pinder, Culturebot
(Too soon to discover planets, too late to discover islands, curated by the Pioneers Go East Collective at the Judson Church)
“The bilingual La Broa’ [written by Hernández] is delivered with love, compassion, and no subtitles. […] This play is, in fact, a love letter to these founding families and to their cherished haunts, whose razing or repurposing has been heartbreaking but whose reimagined resurrection here is heartwarming and magical.”
— Bob Abelman, The Boston Globe
(La Broa’ [Broad Street], Trinity Repertory Company)
“[A] late duet for Wasiuta and Hernández to a lovely jazz waltz is the show’s one extended breath of dance freedom, air and water embodied in sound and motion.”
— Brian Seibert, The New York Times
(Michela Marino Lerman’s Once Upon a Time Called Now, the Joyce Theater)
“Orlando Hernández delivered a wonderfully nuanced solo number in which his tapping was both light as a feather and heavy with stomps creating a spellbinding dichotomy of motion and sound.”
— Steve Sucato, arts air
(Music From the Sole’s I Didn’t Come To Stay, Dance Cleveland)
“The gem of 2019 was [A]guacero, a beyond-tap solo by Orlando Hernández. To music by Totó la Momposina, Hernández spent five minutes blowing us away, with polyrhythms, cross-rhythms and flow.”
— Quinn Batson, Offoffoff.com
(DANCE NOW Festival, Joe’s Pub)
“The showstopper of the spirits is Orlando Hernández’s delightful Ghost of Christmas Present. […] Trinity capitalizes on Hernández’s multiple and impressive talents, including a dazzling, blazing-fast display of tap dance and a lively presentation of juggling, to depict the Ghost’s colorful personality and joyful expression. The Spirit of the Present is a master showman.”
— Veronica Bruscini, BroadwayWorld Rhode Island
(A Christmas Carol, Trinity Repertory Company)
“[Hernández] appears, frankly, as if he just stumbled out of bed and onto the stage, dreamy-eyed and rumpled. His sell is the softest by far, and his internal story the most captivating. He’s onto something, using tap to get there, and you want to stick around for the ride.”
— Claudia La Rocco, The New York Times
(Andrew Nemr and Cats Paying Dues’ Where the Music Lives, the Julia Miles Theater)