Cuban National Ballet

My first introduction to the Cuban National Ballet was a small mention given to the company's founder, Alicia Alonso, in a documentary. Since then I have read her biography and any other material I could find, and scrounged YouTube for videos. I recently found this production (performed in Paris in 2007) on DVD. What I love most is the passion with which they dance, even the corps, and their musicality. Alicia Alonso founded the company in the 1940s, and in those early days they toured the country performing in factories and army bases, among other unlikely places, and sharing the history of ballet as they went. As a result of one woman's vision and persistence, ballet is now as popular as soccer in Cuba, with audiences cheering and screaming unrestrainedly during performances. She still directs the company at the age of ninety.

Artists

The dancers of American Ballet theatre are visiting Cuba for the first time since 1960, to honor ballet legend Alicia Alonso, who still directs the Cuban National Ballet at the age of 90.  I've attached a link to an article.  I love seeing this, artists going where politicians fear to tread.  In Alicia Alonso's own words:


"We need beauty inside, we need peace inside of us, I think through art.  The more we advance, the more necessary it is, and the more we can touch each other -- if not the same language, at least the same feeling of humanity."


This from a woman who danced into her seventies in spite of being nearly blind, and does more to promote relations between Cuba and America than a legion of diplomats.  I can think of no better example of the triumph of the human spirit.

American dancers in homage to Cuban ballet legend - Entertainment - MercedSun-Star.com