Poised
The extraordinary world of ballet in Havana, Cuba
Words by Erin Spens
Photos by G L Askew II
Before President Obama walked on stage at the //Gran Teatro de la Havana Alicia Alonso// on March 22nd, 2016 to address the crowd, the first time in almost 90 years that a sitting US president has stepped foot in Cuba, a remarkable moment took place in the theatre’s balcony. 94-year-old Cuban prima ballerina, founder of the Ballet Nacional de Cuba, and namesake of the very theatre they were in, Alicia Alonso walked out onto the balcony to a roaring standing ovation from the crowd. Arms open, hands fluttering gracefully by her side, wearing bright red lipstick, she crossed her arms over her chest as if holding the crowd’s applause to her heart.
Alicia Alonso, now known as the Grand Dame of Cuban ballet, and Fernando Alonso her husband at the time, founded the Ballet Alicia Alonso in 1948. When financial difficulties forced the company to shut in 1956, she moved abroad to dance until Fidel Castro came to power and resuscitated the company, renaming it the Ballet Nacional de Cuba. The Alonsos rebuilt their company, touring the country performing “Giselle” and other classics. The couple is credited with making Cuban ballet the world-famous institution that it is today and for establishing its unique style, which marries classical rigor and style with the unique physicality and passion of Latin dance.
Though Ms. Alonso’s ex-husband Fernando Alonso passed away in 2013, the magic they created lives on in Cuba. Through her 94 years and failing eyesight, Ms. Alonso still supervises and helps to choreograph the Ballet Nacional de Cuba, and their daughter, Laura Alonso, also a former ballerina, now runs her own company.
On the busy Avenida 51 in the heart of Marianao, a western neighborhood of Havana, is an old and faded mansion. What used to be a hospital, and before that the headquarters of the United States Calvary during the Spanish-American War, is now home to ProDanza and the Laura Alonso Ballet company. Here dancers with dreams of leaping across the stage at the Gran Teatro for the Ballet Nacional, are trained and nurtured by their Gran Maître, Laura Alonso.
Laura Alonso’s vision was to create a school that would teach young students ballet and to nurture the talent of older students who dream of dancing professionally. ProDanza was founded in 1988 as a ballet training school, teaching local students and, later, dancers from around the world the art of Cuban ballet. Laura would train them up, and her mother Alicia would “steal them” for the Ballet Nacional de Cuba. A few years later, in 1995, the Laura Alonso Ballet company was founded to retain the ProDanza students who were dancing at a professional level. The Laura Alonso Ballet company now tours the world staging 180 performances every year.
I met with Laura Alonso at a rehearsal for the company’s performance of the ballet //El Corsario//, which is based on Lord Byron’s poem “The Corsair.” Ms. Alonso blew into the theater like a fierce gust of wind and proclaimed we should all be ready to hear some shouting. “The only difference between a terrorist and ballet teacher,” she tells me, “is that you can negotiate with a terrorist.”
Throughout the rehearsal Ms. Alonso shouts both critique and praise at the dancers who are preparing for tomorrow night’s opening performance. When the prima ballerina halts in the middle of a hold with her partner, Ms. Alonso erupts into shouting, until the ballerina explains that her costume is too large and in that particular position pulls away from her chest. “Well, we’ll charge double admission fees then!” Ms. Alonso jokes sternly into her microphone cutting through the tension. “A striptease!”
Despite the family heritage that belongs to this company, funding is extremely limited and relies heavily on donations from overseas. A director at ProDanza, Maiuly Sánchez, explains that for this production the costumes and props were all donated last minute from a ballet school in the United States. In Cuba you cannot buy pointe shoes, so everything is brought in by foreigners. The ProDanza headquarters betrays the lack of funding. Paint chips off the wall in the practice rooms, the floor is peeling up around the edges, and the courtyard is dry and dusty. And yet, it’s hard to deny the feeling that something special is happening here.
Laura Alonso’s energy is electrifying; born in Manhattan to her famous ballet dancer parents — Alicia and Fernando, she’s got the hot blood of a Cuban and the sharp tongue of a New Yorker. She’s the type of person you’re both afraid of and desperate to impress. At three years old she moved back to Havana with her parents, and at 12 she was dancing for them, as expected, in the Corp de Ballet for the Ballet Nacional. Eventually she went on to establish ProDanza and the Laura Alonzo Ballet in Marianao “because there is nothing else here in this part of Havana that exists //for the people//,” she says.
Despite the impressive reputation of Cuban ballet around the world, a future is never guaranteed for dancers on the island. Two years ago during a tour of Mexico, sixteen of ProDanza’s dancers defected, most of them for the United States. In the nine months prior, 11 dancers from the Ballet Nacional deserted while on tour abroad, as well. Similar to Cuba’s talented baseball players, the loss of its ballet dancers has been a steady drip from the island. “As long as the salaries are so low here, we will have a talent drain,” Ms. Alonso says.
The great international demand for Cuban ballet dancers continues; Cuban dancers are sought after for their high level of technical training and artistry, their work ethic, and by companies hoping to diversify their corps to better reflect their own diverse audiences. While the Laura Alonso company can serve as a training ground for dancers hoping to join the Ballet Nacional de Cuba, the dancers that get there often set their sights even further afield — on New York or London. The eminence of Cuban ballet is still strong, but the standard of living for the dancers doesn’t compare. Monthly salaries in Cuba sit at around $30 (USD), so while a ballet dancer who might defect to the US won’t receive anywhere near the salary of those that defect for baseball, it’s still incredibly enticing.
Back at the Teatro Nacional de Cuba the next evening, there is a small crowd gathered in front. Facing the famous Revolution Square, the Teatro Nacional has housed many famous ballet performances and is ready for another one tonight. Inside the dancers have already warmed up with an hour-long class and backstage legs are stretching, feet are being wrapped, faces are painted, and hair is pulled back. The theater seats gradually fill up Cuban-style, with families and groups of friends sitting and laughing together and people greeting each other left and right as if it was a block party and the theater was filled with friendly neighbors.
The lights dim, the curtain opens, and the night takes off into Lord Byron’s romantic story “The Corsair,” about a pirate captain, Conrad, who leaves his island and the love of his life behind to fight the Turkish Pasha, who is planning to invade them. Conrad ends up rescuing the chief harem slave, the beautiful Gulnare, who falls in love with Conrad. When he can’t bring himself to kill the Pasha in his sleep in order for the two to escape, Gulnare does it herself. Upon returning together to his pirate headquarters, Conrad discovers that his beloved Medora has died of grief while he was gone, believing him dead. Conrad flees the island, never to be seen again.
The dancers portray the story beautifully; love and longing hangs in the air and, for my last night in Havana, I’m not sure it could be more perfect. For an island so full of stories and storytellers, and a people born with the ability to dance, ballet has a special home here, in this complicated place. Sometimes words only get in the way — in Cuba, it’s dance that speaks straight to the heart.
First published in Boat Magazine Issue 11: Havana Cuba — http://www.boat-mag.com/issues/havana/
