WHEN I WAS BORN, 40 YEARS HAD GONE BY SINCE Carlos Alfonso spent the first night of his life on a bench in Santo Suárez Park, in the arms of his mother, on August 10, 1949. By the 1970s, Carlos Alfonso had met Ele Valdés. At that time, his attempts to make music had led him to a Ministry of Culture work camp during the sugar harvest in Matanzas, and subsequently to Trinidad, where his encounter with Afro-Cuban music would define the premise for the sound of his band, Síntesis. How was the sount of Síntesis born? I was participating in a Yoruba religious ceremony during a film shoot, and we realized that if we combined that music with other types of sounds, we would have something that had never been done before. (Carlos Alfonso was right. The musical esthetics of this group, influ- enced by the creativity of Mike Porcel, Lucía Huergo, and—over the last 20 years—by Esteban Puebla, made Síntesis stand out in Cuban music. It is the same group that since 1976 has embodied a sort of school or rehearsal room for many Cuban artists.) Even though the hegemony of commercial music is growing, Síntesis survives with...

I MET HER TWO YEARS AGO. I WAS ATTENDING A performance of Showroom and in front of me was an empty seat that she filled a few seconds before the show started. Susana Pous swayed her body gently from side to side, hummed the mu- sic, counted, and inhaled and exhaled along with her dancers. She was trying to repeat or rectify the steps in each scene. At one point, Susana Pous, was considered as the intruder of a story, the story of the Cuban dance company DanzAbierta, founded by Marianela Boán. A short time before DanzAbierta’s founder left the company, Susana Pous subverted the migration patterns of the Cuban uni- verse. This Barcelona-born dancer arrived in Havana determined to become accustomed to the island’s beat, its concept of time, and to give herself over to dance in a way that she could not do in Spain. And she became part of the group. In 2001, Marianela Boán bid farewell to DanzAbierta and the company began to perish. The lack of rigor split the group and the dynamic brought by new choreographers did not connect at heart with the company’s potential. At that time, Cuban choreographers were going through a...

For Jaime Reytor it is hard to assume his current reality. He repeats his story over and over again with the precision of an English machine. He cannot believe it yet. First, there was a phone call, then fear, the imaginary persecution by executives from the Cuban National Ballet (BNC by its acronym in Spanish), the finger prints at the Interests Section, a visit to Puerto Rico, money lent by a cousin, the buying of a plain ticket, the escape in the last flight Havana-Miami, the man who allowed him to sleep over at his place, the friend who welcomed him in Phoenix, Arizona. Even though he doesn’t feel completely satisfied, he confessed to OnCuba to be really happy. For now, the ninth dancer to leave the BNC is only concerned about his legalization in the United States. Last June 12, his visa expired, but according to the legislation, the metamorphosed political asylum and the parole in his passport will make the process easier. Jaime is part of news that has discredited Cuba’s most important classic dance company. Eight dancers left the company in Puerto Rico and went to the United States.Their statements have been a delicacy for the international...

“Who has never been let down? Do not think that a system, or society, or the State, or a certain person is the one to blame. It is our illusions that let us down…” Juan Form Between 2011 and 2012, Danza Contemporánea de Cuba (DCC) lost almost a dozen of its best dancers. Some deserted, others were hired abroad and some others disappointed of dancing demanded a radical escape. And all of the sudden substitutes became true leading stars. And all of the sudden that generation that taught me a few things about dance was gone. For reasons that are never clear, I no longer enjoyed Daile Carrazana and Osnel Delgado in DCC. After eight years Carrazana would come out looking for new experiences. Osnel questioned his desire for dancing. In addition to being members of the company, Carrazana was also part of Santiago Alfonso and Osnel devoted some time to choreography. Outside the company they understood that the market usually subjugates dance, and your technical and artistic accomplishments are dodged. It is more important what you show of your body, the lavish wardrobe, the attractiveness and sensuality of movements. However, those who became first dancers cannot accept to go...