The Gran Teatro de La Habana (Great Theather of Havana) will be reopened soon, following a lengthy renovation process. It willl also be renamed after Alicia Alonso, Cuba’s most famous ballet dancer of all times. Many have focused on the splendorous appearance of the renewed eclectic building, and the contrast with the numerous ruins surrounding it in one of the most visible spots of Old Havana. An important fact related to the reopening of the theatre has been overlooked, however: the prices of the tickets will be increased to a point that will make them inaccessible for many people. The new prices will range from 10 to 30 Cuban pesos, which may not seem as much if we look at them as the equivalent of 50 cents to 1.50 dollars. But in Cuba the latter represents almost two days’ pay for employees in state-run companies, whose average wage is 25 dollars. Photo: Rafael de la Osa When Alicia Alonso and her first husband Fernando Alonso founded the Ballet Nacional de Cuba ballet company in 1948, one of the things they wanted to change was the kind of audience who had access to ballet performances. It was hard in the beginning,...

World renowned pianists Lang Lang and Chucho Valdés will combine their talents in Havana, on October 9, in what promises to be an electrifying concert. According to cultural communicator and event organizer Eric Latzky, the two musicians met by chance last year in Vienna, Austria. “They were there to perform, they met briefly and played a bit of music together in private. Later they decided they wanted to put on a concert together. The show in Havana will be their first joint public performance, and I think they’re both very excited,” he said. The New York Times described Lang Lang as the “hottest artist on the classical music planet,” while Time magazine included him on its list of the 100 most influential people in the world. One thing is for sure, if a picture is worth a thousand words, the 30 year old Lang looks like a young boy, dressed in sneakers and shiny jackets, with spiky hair. Rocking this unique look, he plays Liszt, Mozart, Beethoven, and Rachmaninov, while his harshest critics describe him as a “phenomenal musician and extremely passionate.” Something he shares with the exceptional Cuban jazz artist, Chucho Valdés, winner of eight Grammy Awards and born...

Carlos Acosta is inviting professionally trained dancers to join the company he is going to form in Cuba, the country where he was born. The future director will hold auditions on August 10 and 11, in the Fernando Alonso National School of Ballet, on the corner of Prado and Trocadero streets, Havana, at 2:30pm, local time. The new company affiliated with Havana Dance Center, will offer contracts to a total of 12 dancers: six men and six women, who demonstrate the capacity to assume the demands of classical and contemporary dance. In keeping with this vision, auditions will consist of classes in both dance forms, in order to measure the hopefuls’ abilities. Acosta is currently preparing to retire as a classical dancer at the Royal Ballet, with his sights set on a career in contemporary dance. This year the UK's Critics' Circle presented him with the National Dance Award in recognition of his achievements during a lifetime devoted to dance, while his version of Don Quixote for the British company was warmly received by U.S. critics. After enjoying the success of Don Quixote, Acosta chose to end his time with the Royal Ballet in the form of a choreographic treat,...

After a nap of almost a decade, Grettel Morejon´s Sleeping Beauty awakens during these days thanks to an invitation of Sofia Ballet, from Bulgaria. The personal story of this leading dancer with the National Ballet of Cuba (BNC by its Spanish acronym) has indissoluble ties with Princess Aurora of the universal tale by Charles Perrault, successfully translated into dance in 1890 by another Frenchman, Marius Petipa. For the young woman who grew up in Havana during a period called "Special" by numerous material shortages, life has not been a fairy tale but her art school masters saw in her a princess from the early years and decided she would play Aurora until graduation day. As every student of the National School of Ballet, Grettel rehearsed and played several characters, but none of them outnumbered the Aurora of The Sleeping Beauty. Those who knew the artist at that stage still associated her with the pas de deux she daily rehearsed with Fernando Alonso, father of the Cuban ballet school, along with the also deceased master Mirtha Hermida. With this work, Grettel won a gold medal in a competition for students held in Cuba and made the entrance exam to BNC, to...

The Cuban National Museum of Dance displays throughout the month of February the original printed program of the premiere of the most important version of Swan Lake, a work which success extends to the movies. The first presentation of the ballet in 1877, at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, received boos, due to the bad choreography by Julius Reisinger, but the piece did not die with the passage of time thanks to the initiative of two great artists: Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. They both belonged to the Mariinsky Theatre, in the Russian city of St. Petersburg, and decide to rescue the work in 1895 in tribute to the composer of the score, Piotr Ilich Tchaikovsky. The resulting piece was so successful that it became the starting point for all subsequent versions. Had it not been for that effort, the world today would not know the most requested ballet in the five continents. Cuba made available to the public from February 2 at the Museum located at the corner of Linea and G SAtreets, at Vedado neighborhood, a sample of the program of that essential version, plus a portrait of Tchaikovsky at the time and the autograph of the original...

Danza Contemporanea de Cuba (DCC) released an old quality, that of being reversible, with a new work by the Belgian-Colombian artist Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, who said "the soul has no gender." This is the essence of the demanding, attractive, free and complex choreography while understandable in its speech and open to infinite interpretations. The main modern company in the country transits from universality to the Cuban as naturally part of the intimate and delves into foreign formulas. Whoever wants to predict where one begins or ends, risks a lie or ridicule. Limits? None, the Caribbean group each year works with multiple choreographers, styles, senses and let the dancers onstage see no differences in age or academic level, even in skills like partnering, or domain of either genre. All serve a ballet with manners of first dancers. While the ballet accustoms us to specific technical steps for each sex and forces the man to always be the mainstay of the dancer, contemporary dance called for an executive democracy, so that not even the dangerous lifts have genre. In DCC all look good partners, and for the record, this is not a spontaneous or readily available quality. If anything distinguishes this company...

The young Cuban choreographer José Enrique Santos considers indispensable the collaboration of a theatrical adviser for the plays to say something to the public. The dancer of Camagüey Ballet has just won the second prize of the 9th Meeting of Young Choreographers in the country by his work Beatas, but before talking about himself, he ponders the joy of having met the playwright Luis Orlando Antúnez, director of La andariega theater group in this city located east of the archipelago. "A theatrical advisor is important for a choreographer, and in this event I have seen very good proposals, but they are mainly focused on a search or exploration of movement, are merely based on that and say anything, and in a dance there is always something to say, something to tell,” the artist trained in the classical ballet academy said. Beatas is a profound play inspired by the homonymous picture of Camagüey’s painter Fidelio Ponce de León (1895-1949), an oil painting full of mysticism which earned the author a prize at the National Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture in 1935. The work recreated in dance delves into the perennial struggle of four women with their alter ego, in the remotest...

The Cuban singer Liuba Maria Hevia believes in the things that flow in art, inspiration, in the Muses and signals. "When a melodic idea or phrase comes to torture me deliciously, I take the guitar and start looking where it is" revealed the composer of songs like Ausencia, Si me falta tu sonrisa, Estela granito de canela, Como un duende y Ángel and Habanera. Despite playing sensibilities with her compositions, Liuba doesn’t see herself as a poet, and the voice that musicologists describe as exceptional is alien to her since she hears herself differently in recordings. By contrast, those around her, admire the stability of her colorful voice in rehearsals and scenarios. It may seem hard to believe in these very technological times that add artifacts to voices with some semblance of natural, but the discs of Hevia faithfully reflect her tones, timbres and melodies. Just a year ago, among the Karl Marx theater curtains, a group of guest dancers dancing were warming up before some songs when sound filled the room, we all thought that the audio technician was testing a drive and well into the theme of singer stopped the piece because an instrument was not heard optimally....

The Cuban singer Liuba Maria Hevia believes in the things that flow in art, inspiration, in the Muses and signals. "When a melodic idea or phrase comes to torture me deliciously, I take the guitar and start looking where it is" revealed the composer of songs like Ausencia, Si me falta tu sonrisa, Estela granito de canela, Como un duende y Ángel and Habanera. Despite playing sensibilities with her compositions, Liuba doesn’t see herself as a poet, and the voice that musicologists describe as exceptional is alien to her since she hears herself differently in recordings. By contrast, those around her, admire the stability of her colorful voice in rehearsals and scenarios. It may seem hard to believe in these very technological times that add artifacts to voices with some semblance of natural, but the discs of Hevia faithfully reflect her tones, timbres and melodies. Just a year ago, among the Karl Marx theater curtains, a group of guest dancers dancing were warming up before some songs when sound filled the room, we all thought that the audio technician was testing a drive and well into the theme of singer stopped the piece because an instrument was not heard optimally....

The second group exhibition Geo-Graphics 2015, scheduled for the first quarter of next year, is already announced with the slogan "Cuban designers have no limits." Its aim is to bring together professionals living in Cuba and abroad with proposals for the private sector of the national market. According to the organizers, this exhibition is the first initiative of displaying design work specifically destined to the private sector, and will lead to obtain valuable insights, for example, of the types of designs and prevailing aesthetic trends. The exhibition will be attended by designers from around the world with typographic posters inspired in Havana as part of the international project Showusyourtype, with which Geo-graphic collaborates. The sisters Annick and Yannick Woungly-Massaga created the Geo -Graphics project to promote the work of Cuban designers around the world and build bridges between those living in and outside Cuba. "Geo- Graphics seeks to disseminate and enhance the good Cuban design," the sisters of French father and Cuban mother stressed. In March 2014, these graduates of the Higher Institute of Industrial Design (ISDI by its Spanish acronym) organized a first exhibition in Havana that they hope to repeat every year. "Showing the successful insertion of Cuban...

The 24th International Ballet Festival of Havana, Cuba, exhibited, from October 28 to November 7, different ways of thinking about dance, with very nice dose of freshness, virtuosity and theatricality accessible to most of the audiences. A total of 28 countries were represented in this edition dedicated to the famous English playwright William Shakespeare, to commemorate the 450th anniversary of his birth. Curiously, that became the weakest point of the event as very few staging contributed to that objective and most of them were incomplete or distant scenes from the choreographic current codes. Perhaps Shakespeare’s genius, from heaven or hell, orchestrated some irony as the event organizers used him as an excuse not to dedicate the Festival to Fernando Alonso, Father of the Cuban school of ballet, on the centenary of his birth, and in the end, due to several claims, they devised a day of lectures in honor of the pedagogue, which was the most crowded side event. From October 31 to November 7, seven luxury teachers gave their own visions and technical, stylistic and interpretive knowledge to students of the National Ballet School of Cuba. In the first session, Julio Bocca, director of the National Ballet of Uruguay,...

One of the stars of dance, the Argentine Julio Bocca, fulfilled his promise to return to Cuba and if previously we witnessed his stage performance, now, after he retired from theater, we can attest his worth in another equally relevant manifestation. The acclaimed artist gave some advices to the new generation of dancers after teaching a master class for students of the National School of Ballet in tribute to the great Cuban pedagogue Fernando Alonso. Bocca invited the trainees to make a difference from the heart, take the most of the music, learn to know your body and seek good relations with peers because you almost never go up on stage alone. The next day, the winner of the Benois Dancing Award in 1992, considered the Oscar of this manifestation, joined as a dancer to the class given by the teacher Lázaro Carreño at the National Ballet of Cuba. All there admired his simplicity and when he was asked about the future of ballet, the director of Uruguay's national company called for Latin American union between institutions and theaters to make co-productions favorable for all. "The idea is not so easy to carry out as I thought four years ago...

The leading dancer of the Washington Brooklyn Mack has an athlete momentum, perhaps because he is fascinated with American football since childhood and something of the player that he boasts of being the best in his neighborhood in Elgin, South Carolina, sprouts on stage. However, the lyricism of Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake stole his heart. Interestingly, his children's desire to become a footballer led the ballet, despite the prejudices of the social environment. "When you grow up in South Carolina you always hear say that ballet is for girls or gays, but once I heard commenting that many professional football players were taking classes and then I saw a gala of amazing dancers worldwide, that changed my perception. Seeing them do so many wonderful things, I thought a strong appeal would have for football professionals to decide to practice ballet, and then I saw an opportunity in my mind, I went home and I offered my mother a deal, "said the artist proclaimed by the American Dance Magazine in 2012 as one of the 25 dancers in the world worth admiring. "If she took me to the football tryouts I was going to take ballet classes, and then mom...

Rodrigo Almarales quit dancing at the latest premiere of the Cincinnati Ballet to perform at the 24th Havana International Ballet Festival. By these days, the American company plays Peter Pan, a new choreographic staging by Septime Webre, director of the Washington Ballet; but the artist chose to fly to his hometown to fulfill the dream of dancing with the National Ballet of Cuba (BNC by its Spanish acronym), company in which his mother was the first soloist. "When I left Cuba, I was 10 and everything looked great. Now things look smaller and I do not have to raise my head when talking to my family, "he said laughing. For this young man, returning home has been interesting, "an emotional shock", he repeats several times. Almarales will dance on October 31 at the program entitled The Magic of Dance, which brings together some classic scenes of relevance and where he will perform the Coppelia pas de deux with Grettel Morejon, BNC prima ballerina. He will also dance with her the Flames of Paris pas de deux, on November 4 and 7 in two concert programs at Mella Theater. " I've never danced entirely the Coppelia pas de deux , I...

"You must transmit, project the light emerging from your chest," teacher Irene Rodriguez demands although she is not a poet but a dancer of those who project true light on the scene. "In class we dance!" and she not only says it, she shows it. Irene impresses by her ability to transmute into many beings on stage, on the character requested, within the most adverse history, and in real life she is a lighting, costume and set designer, public relations manager, teacher and director of her own Spanish dance company in Cuba . A song by Aerosmith is filtered at the hot room of the National Ballet School (ENB by its Spanish acronym) but the teacher acts as if she just heard the heels of the students of her workshop. She works in a premise she borrowed, as she lacks her own headquarters. The artist grew up in the hardest years of so-called Cuban Special Period and does not complain about anything, although she works under low illumination, and the eternal summer of the island forces to keep open the windows facing Sevilla Hotel, where a clerk touts his preference for light rock. She puts an Air Supply hit, and...

The Cuban journalist and photographer Gabriel Davalos is convinced that there is no other place in the world where dance and the city have as much to do with each other as Havana and, therefore, this art seems the ideal language to describe the metropolis. His first photo book Habana Sensual (Sensual Havana) responds to this belief and, incidentally, exhibits some of the qualities that put the Cuban school of ballet in a prominent position globally. Many rooms in the capital seem to have conspired in some images but can anyone plan waves in the Malecón, the force of the winds and the provision of architectural designs of past centuries? Sensual Havana will generate a tumult of opinions on Saturday October 25th during its presentation, open to the public at the National Museum of Dance, because it is a purely provocative piece. The artists display naturally and casually their talents, sometimes as we never before have seen them on stage. This book has been receiving reviews online for a while, in the social network Facebook, where hundreds of fans discussed the poetry of images by Dávalos, the virtuosity of the artists, the charm of a city with few modern dyes...

The dancing star Vladimir Malakhov confessed that some dancers made him cry out of emotion during the sessions of the first International North Atlantic Dance Contest, driven by him in Cuba from September 14 to 18. The star of Ukrainian origin expressed surprise at the quality of the 75 competitors and said that the very high level of dance forced him to expand his artistic proposals for the Caribbean country. "When I saw so much quality I found it impossible to deliver a single award," said the artist who was awarded in the past with the Benois de la Dance, among other awards of relevance. Instead of a "Grand Vladimir Malakhov Award", he granted two and created four special laurels which, in his opinion, were insufficient to recognize the quality of all good dancers and works in the contest, enjoyed in a sold-out Eddy Sunol Theater in the eastern city of Holguin. The top winners of the competition were Cubans Saad Lisbeth, with her poignant portrayal of Edith Piaf in "Non", choreographed by Osnel Delgado; and Carlos Carbonell with “Pasajera la lluvia”, by choreographer Nelson Reyes. In the contest dancers from Mexico, Venezuela, Uruguay and Cuba participated. "I never imagined...

Tamara Rojo charms thrive under the rays of the Caribbean sun; on the streets of London she would hardly hear so many compliments and wolf-whistles from men because there, those who know her look with respect at the director of the National English Ballet (ENB) and the ones that don’t know her, certainly don’t stare. To the eyes of the Cubans, the most international Spanish ballet dancer wears an angelical look of marble and an adolescent´s smile, her warmth does not seem European. In a way, Tamara is also Cuban and, in fact, she arrived to the national ballet company to take classes just like everyone else. No one was surprised by her humility and constancy during the alleged vacation days; it was not the first time. Classes, rehearsals and when everyone believed that the famous artist started to break, she actually walked just a few blocks to take an extra second round of fitness advised by physiotherapists and rehabilitation. If anyone has doubts about how to become a star, Rojo embodies all the answers. "Since childhood, I have seen great talents wasted for lack of discipline. I saw fellow dancers in my own school with more talent than me...

A year after the passing of Maestro Fernando Alonso, this July 28, relatives, teachers and dance students walked to his unmarked grave to lay flowers. No cultural institution in Havana promoted a tribute nor sent flowers to the cemetery. Those present at the necropolis of Colon did not exceed twenty, most workers of the Prodanza center, a modest company formed and led by Laura Alonso, daughter of the Maestro. Life has cruel ironies and silences. In Cuban culture, one of those illogical silences relegates Fernando Alonso, the great teacher and one of the essential creators of the Cuban school of ballet and the national company of our country. It has been a year since he died in his native Havana, the city where he chose to die. Some would have preferred a foreign land, to accuse the Cuban of abandonment or waiver, and thus justify the silence. However, despite failing to achieve that, they won. The veil over Fernando continues and the danger of oblivion, after death, is increased. In a way, Alonso still lives much of his students, who were many and from several generations. Immortality can be silent until one day, but the ballet is such an ephemeral...

With a show entitled “Sinfonía española de lo clásico al flamenco”, Irene Rodríguez made clear her confidence on the intensity of dancing. She handles everything with a domineering attitude, but no one knows how to balance humbleness and ambition better than her, Irenita, as she is referred to by those who observed her transformation into a great dancerat a very young age. Her humbleness makes her accessible and loved in Havana, where she was born. Her Spanish roots on her mother side played an important role in the beginning and still do sometimes, or are used as starting point for different artistic adventures. As a child, Rodriguez admired classic ballet dancers and apprehended the essence of ballet. She fell for the theater and studied performance at the Higher Institute of the Arts (ISA by its acronym in Spanish). For her there are no movements free from emotions. No one was surprised when she became prima ballerina of the Spanish Ballet of Cuba (BEC by its acronym in Spanish) by the age of 20, or founded her own company by the age of 30 as she was also trained as professor and choreographer. Despite her busy life schedule among performances and...

Every dancer and apprentice dreams about taking part in a big production, and Cuballet offers that opportunity this summer without looking at hierarchies or origins. British, US, Dutch, Mexican, Salvadorian and Cuban artists will share the stage with the piece “Swans Lake” and lessons from July 7 through August 3. “Swans Lake”, the most popular classic ballet pieceever was chosen in response to requests made by most the participants in previous editions of this event. “Dancing like a swan is dancer’s greatest dream”, said professor and choreographer Hector Figueredo, founder of Cuballetin the mid 80’s. Figueredo explained Oncuba this is a very attractive piece among dancers and the public in general given the bipolar nature of the main female dancer. In one evening she plays a good and an evil swan, which are differentiated in the use of opposite colorsin their clothes –black and white. In the opinion of this member of the Prodanza Artistic Council, these events show students and professionals how to stage a classic piece, which demands strict discipline and constant rehearsals till mastering different dancing styles and performance techniques. The participants in this years’ edition will get ballet, repertoires, physical efficiency, and folklore lessons, among others....

Gabriel Davalos’ photographs are popular in Facebook in such a way he would have never imagined. His work has managed to get the attention of dance connoisseurs and amateurs, something arts cannot always achieve. Undoubtedly, this digital platform allowed this journalist to reach sudden popularity and the opportunity to express his opinions through his photographs. An increasing number of virtual friends help him dream further, some others try to meet with him in person. Through Facebook he also receives invitations for new photo sessions. As a result of his professional link with the Cuban music band Buena Fe and the Jose Marti Cultural Society, Davalos has been able to work in countries from America, Europe and Asia. It is still hard to believe he had exhibited his work first in Spain, the United States and South Korea than in Cuba, where the Spanish embassy in Havana is now inviting him to take part in a collective exhibition next Thursday, June 12, at 5:00 p.m., in its venue. The exhibit will be open for the public and has invited deluxe artists such as Cuban dancer, choreographer, professor and artistic director Lizt Alfonso, the founder of a company by her name; as...

Friction generates unexpected feelings. Whoever claims it doesn’t, is lying. The interaction between two bodies sometimes lead to situations we had never thought possible. “By friction”, the latest world premier by the Cuban contemporary dance company Endedans deals with such feelings. The piece doesn’t tell a story in particular; instead, it suggests possible situations resulting from the interaction of two bodies. It makes no contributions to the language of dance but it allows this company from the central province of Camaguey to display its versatility, youth, vigor and huge desire of enjoying dance. For the company’s director, Tania Vergara, the creation by Danish Jens Bjerregaard holds tight to a very European style, almost inexpressive faces and supported in the natural instinct of dancers. Cubans are used to a more academic way of dancing with intertwined steps for the sake of requirements that become the means for virtuosity. Besides, we are used to externalize reactions with the whole body, including the movement of the eyes, the eyebrows, the mouth, the hands, the hips and the shoulders. Thus, it is difficult for the dancers and the audience to assimilate any expressive proposal less extrovert. Nonetheless, Endedans’s dancers made it; the energy of...

The Cuban painter Carlos Guzman experience with dreams of the alchemists in his most recent paintings in a series dubbed The elixir of life, which he will present the coming June 20 through July 12 at the Mart Gallery in St. Petersburg, Russia. The creations give continuity to a display at the city of New York, United States, last April, with the same theme, collection not at all alien to the spirit and the belief system of this painter, draftsman, sculptor and illustrator of publications. "The elixir of life was already discovered," he says with the same serenity he dedicates to the paintings. "If everyone analyzes itself, tries to find out who he is, what their problems and defects are, overcoming an error, improve behavior and convey favorable communication energy, they will reach happiness," the artist argued. The particular view of Guzmán on this topic includes always doing good, treating others with respect and turning negative energy into positive, for it leads to this unique elixir of happiness. By looking at his paintings, the viewer perceives a certain attraction to the chivalric romances, intrigues in courts, the life of minstrels, alchemists and inventors of past centuries with their doubts, searches...

Viengsay Valdés would have been Carmen anyway, because she carries the challenge in her blood. If she wouldn’t have gone into ballet, she would have equally chosen a path to fight, to turn the impossible into possible, turn predictions and defend her own ideas, still at the risk of her life. The great prima ballerina of the National Ballet of Cuba (BNC) adores the challenging woman conceived in literature by Prosper Mérimée in 1845. Thousands of admirers beg her for more Kitry's (Don Quixote) and Odile's interpretations (swans’ lake), two characters that comfortably suit her, but if they ask Valdés her likes and dislikes, they would get surprised with the answer. For this reason, the most recent artistic invitation was so pleasurable for the ballerina, cherished among better in the word. According to the journalist Valentina Boeta, of Yucatán journal, Viengsay caught all of the looks with her interpretation of Carmen in Mérida's Theather José Peón Contreras, Mexico, with a thoroughly expressive face and a sensibility capable of transmitting the heroine's drama. In the article entitled ´´Carmen lives in West Indies´´, the reporter talks about a ´´ First figure whose light obscures all that is around and whose presence and...