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, invited the learners to make a difference from the heart and look for musicality. While in subsequent days, Xiomara Reyes, prima ballerina of the American Ballet Theatre and Jose Manuel Carreno, director of San Jose Ballet, from United States, recommended greater fluidity of movement and criticized the mechanical performances.
Cyril Atanassoff, Professor of Paris Opera Ballet, gave a demonstration lesson on the qualities of the French school and publicly acknowledged that Professor Fernando Alonso influenced on him since he was young by his humility and way of interacting with students.
Alonso founded the National Ballet of Cuba (BNC by its Spanish acronym) and the first ballet academy in the country for professional purposes, in collaboration with Alicia and Alberto Alonso. He also constructed the methodology of the Cuban school, considered one of the best in the world, and by his work he was internationally recognized with the Benois Dance Award, considered the Oscar of that manifestation.
When he died in 2013, about to turn 99, Alonso was still participating in classes and rehearsals of the school, in addition to advising professionals who approached him looking for his perspective.
The French choreographer Eric Vu An gave away some of his creative skills to new generations, and the BNC leading dancers Marta Garcia and Orlando Salgado, now retired, closed the day.
It also surprised the fierceness of Brooklyn Mack, Washington Ballet leading dancer; the freshness of New York Hispanic Ballet and the plasticity of Alicia Amatriain, first figure of the Sttugart Ballet from Germany.
The American Mack and Cuban Viengsay Valdes staged two memorable pas de deux: Don Quixote and Diana and Actaeon, with levels of commitment and virtuosity that left the public wanting to prolong the bonding stage.
The audience only saw high jumps, numerous twists, complex steps and enjoyment, not knowing that Valdes had the flu and Mack suffered a foot injury.
“When I was at the stage we felt super” The American said excited about the reception of the audience on the second day and added that they both forget about the world on the stage, as they give completely their best for the art.
The Latin feel immersed in the gestural freedom of contemporary dance came through the performance by the New York Hispanic Ballet with four conceptual choreography proposals that spread love, sadness, irony, passion, longing, misunderstandings and enjoyment.
The Belgian-Colombian choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa consolidated her prestige in Cuba with the premiere here of her work ¨ Sombrerísimo, ¨and the revival of the neoclassical piece ¨ Celeste, ¨conceived by her for the BNC.
Another well received premiere was ¨Nous sommes, ¨by Peruvian creator Jimmy Gamonet, who praised the performances by the BNC prima ballerina Grettel Morejon and the soloist Serafin Castro, unorthodox duo that requires a certain quality of movement, different from the bravery injected to classical duets.
Castro was a spectacular buffoon in Swan Lake but in Musicante he had an unimpressive performance by the lack of technical vocabulary and lack of style by Cuban choreographer Eduardo Blanco, who was also in evidence in ¨Pulso Romantico . ¨The protagonists of the latter show, Chanel Cabrera and Yankiel Pujada, like Castro, could be better used. The grace of that extremely young artist saved the premiere of Gavotte, which stiffness bordered on ridiculous. The France-based Cuban choreographer Pedro Consuegra did not use wisely the dancers and for a moment only conveyed anxiety to a dance that is part of history long ago. Consuegra is the author of the version of Cinderella with which the BNC has garnered applause from domestic and foreign scenarios, but that has had few successes in Havana Festivals.
Some pieces should never have been revived such as Tula , by Alicia Alonso, despite the tribute to one of the great writers of Latin America, Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda. The scarcity of public talked by itself and it is a shame because the dancers Amaya Rodríguez, Víctor Estévez, Julio Blanes, Regina Hernandez, Luis Valle, Gabriela Mesa, Alejandro Silva, Alfredo Ibanez, Arian Molina and others, deserve attention. The revival of Caleidos, also by Alonso, played down rhythm to the penultimate gala at the National Theatre, where the scene titled As You Like It, by the great creator John Neumeier, played by Carolina Aguero, from the Hamburg Ballet and Cuban Javier Torres, from Northern Ballet, was neither understood.
As a choreographer, the Venezuelan Vicente Nebrada proved his universality with the revival of his first international success: ¨ Percusion para seis hombres, ¨and a smaller version of his worldwide famous piece: Our Waltzes, which was presented as the culmination of the Festival with the title ¨Valsette.¨
“Nebrada’s works have not time, remain valid in the past, always work, and there is a growing interest in dancing it, especially in Latin America,”the also Venezuelan Yanis Pikieris, who along with American Zane Wilson preserves the heritage of this poet of the movement, said.
Serafin Castro, Camilo Ramos, Luis Valle, Alfredo Ibanez, Alejandro Silva and Yankiel Pujada gave ample proof of virtuosity and the duet between Viengsay Valdes and Victor Estevez multiplied tha charm of the closing ceremony.
A couple of extremely high level of dialogue was the one made up by Cubans Yolanda Correa and Joel Carreno, current leading dancers of the Ballet of Norway, who wove safely and with gestural care their two presentations at the event: a show of Swan Lake, with great restraint and technical brilliance, and a fine pas de deux of Romeo and Juliet in the final show .
I hope that in future editions, other Cubans present in foreign companies can come to exhibit their art, especially when the presence of foreign artists is increasingly decimated and the last event was not attended by dancers from the Bolshoi, Mariinsky, the Paris Opera, the Royal Ballet of London, and the English National Ballet, companies present in the most important festivals and galas.
It is noteworthy that British companies not even send a representative when this edition was dedicated to Shakespeare, an icon of UK. However, the Cuban-American Rodrigo Almarales, stopped participating in a new production of the Cincinnati Ballet to come to dance to his native country and fulfilled that dream with courage in a pas de deux ¨Coppelia y dos Llamas de Paris, ¨along with the fearless Grettel Morejon.
Other premieres of interest in the Festival were Sinnerman, by Alan Lucien Oyen, danced by Argentine Daniel Proietto; In Light and Shadow, by Krystof Pastor, with Liu Miaomiao and Li Lin, of the Hong Kong Ballet; Aldabal , by Cuban Irene Rodriguez , danced by her own company; Mono Lisa, by Itzik Galili, with Alexander Jones and the stellar Alicia Amatriain, of the Stuttgart Ballet, Germany; Tango, by Lidia Segni, performed by the company of the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Love fear Loss, by Ricardo Amarante, with Aki Saito and Wim Vanlessen, of the Flanders Royal Ballet; and Motley, by Zhang Disha, with Qiu Yunting and Wu Sicong, from the National Ballet of China.
Members of the South African Joburt Ballet first performed in the event of more than 50 years of history and company director, Dirk Badenhorst, thanked the support of several Cuban institutions.
A company that progresses to a top position in the Latin American continent is the National Ballet of Uruguay, known by the acronym of the state entity that created it, Sodre. Harmony and stage projection of two of its leading figures, Maria Ricetto and Ciro Tamayo, left in Havana an image of professionalism on the rise.
Paloma Herrera and Xiomara Reyes, prima ballerinas of the American Ballet Theatre, said goodbye the event in style, with a supreme sense of dancing enjoyment. And the Spanish Joaquin de Luz, leading dancer of the New York City Ballet (NYCB), also combined experience and enjoyment in Five Variations on a piece by Mexican choreographer David Fernandez and in Other Dances, by American Jerome Robbins, piece that featured two other extraordinary factors: the sharpened technique by the great American dancer Ashley Bouder and the elegant piano performance by Cuban Marcos Madrigal.
The award-winning pianist likewise contributed to the success of Valsette, with music of Venezuelan composer Teresa Carreño.
The presence of Camaguey Ballet supported with elegance the Festival, which missed the absence of Danza Contemporanea de Cuba, a company of numerous international successes in recent years when the event was attended by lower level foreign groups.
All Asian dancers stood out as they showed a motion quality proper of their own culture integrated to ballet.
For 10 days, the Festival, chaired by Cuban prima ballerina Alicia Alonso, art invaded the National, Mella and Karl Marx Theatres with art, in addition to galleries for exhibitions, and conference, book presentations, film and video areas.
The dancers of this essential Cuban company gracefully emerged from another choreographed marathon, double shows, dissimilar characters and little time to rest. Viengsay Valdes, Yanela Piñera, Anette Delgado, Estheysis Menendez, Dani Hernández, Amaya Rodriguez, Grettel Morejon, Camilo Ramos and Victor Estevez, among others, showed strength and value.
Shakespeare, who knew how to cheat death in many ways, apparently was not present at the Festival, or perhaps in a place somewhere beyond shared by geniuses, had the humility to give way in this event to Fernando Alonso, for in the centenary of his birth to contemplate some fruits of his eternal love for dance.
Authors
Martha Sánchez,
Martica
