Cuban national ballet defectors in Miami seeking to grow artistically MIAMI (Reuters) - Six dancers who defected last month from the National Ballet of Cuba, one of the communist-led country's proudest and most prestigious institutions, are due to audition at a Miami ballet group on Thursday. "They are here in Miami, they are young and talented and we are looking forward to seeing them audition this afternoon," said Pedro Pablo Pena, founder of the Cuban Classical Ballet of Miami, a non-profit dance organization that promotes professional dancers of Hispanic descent. Four of the dancers appeared on a Miami-based Spanish language TV station on Wednesday night to explain that they were looking to advance their careers outside Cuba, where dancers live privileged lives but still earn modest salaries of $30 a month. One of the dancers, Arianni Martin, 20, told the TV show, 'Sevcec a Fondo' on America TeVe that she wanted to be "in a place where one can grow artistically." A spokesman for the National Ballet of Cuba confirmed on Wednesday that a total of seven members of the group had abandoned the group while touring in Mexico last month. There was no other comment from authorities in Cuba, which has seen periodic defections of artistic and sporting figures over the decades since Fidel Castro's Revolution in 1959. The dancers who left last month are five men and two women between the ages of 20 and 24. Six of them are believed to have crossed the Mexican border to come to the United States under the Cuban Adjustment Act which grants special immigration privileges to Cuban exiles. One of the dancers stayed in Mexico, according to the Miami-based website www.cafefuerte.com. "They were being exploited in Cuba and could barely afford to eat," said Alexis Perez, 40, the uncle of one of the dancers Annie Ruiz Diaz, 24. The Cuban national ballet, known for its adherence to a classical style of ballet and for producing many world-class dancers, regularly makes international tours. Others have been allowed to leave Cuba freely, including Carlos Acosta with the Royal Ballet in London and Jose Manuel Carreno, who retired in 2011 as a much revered principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre in New York. Cuban ballet legend Alicia Alonso founded the National Ballet of Cuba in 1948 and, at the age of 91, despite being nearly blind, continues as its artistic director. Cuba provides free training to thousands of young dancers around the country from aged nine, with the elite graduating to the National Ballet. The company has struggled financially in recent years and now accepts fee-paying dance students from abroad. The school's Havana headquarters, located in a colonial-era former palace, is also undergoing expensive repairs after parts of the ceiling collapsed. The defectors face an uncertain future in Miami. "We expect to put on some events with them for the community here but I don't have the budget to employ them full-time," said Pena with the Cuban Classical Ballet of Miami. He briefly danced with the National Ballet in Havana and came to Miami in 1980. "But they are talented and I imagine they will find spaces in companies here in the United States," Pena said, noting that the highly-regarded San Francisco Ballet has eight Cubans in the company. Miami's top ballet group, Miami City Ballet, which has won accolades in recent years, currently has two Cuban-born dancers neither of whom defected from Cuba, according to Roberto Santiago, the ballet company's spokesman. They left with permission from Cuban authorities. They can travel back to visit family as well without any hassle," he told Reuters in an email. Salaries for ballet dancers in the United States vary according to the size of the company, said Santiago. He would not disclose what Miami City Ballet dancers earn, besides commenting that "it affords them a comfortable middle class existence with full medical and dental benefits." Additional reporting by Jeff Franks and Nelson Acosta in Havana; Editing by Kieran Murray and Frances Kerry