On a Mission to Cuba, Bearing Balanchine
By SUKI JOHN
HAVANA -- PLEASE don't laugh," says Lourdes Lopez, a former principal dancer of New York City Ballet, "but I had a sort of second coming." Ms. Lopez, who left her native Cuba when she was one year old, is describing her first trip back here in 1997, at the age of 39. "For the first time I felt like I belonged somewhere."
Upon returning to New York, Ms. Lopez called Ben Rodriguez-Cubeñas, a Cuban-American program officer of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. "I said, 'Ben, now is the time,'" she says. "So we got our act together and founded the Cuban Artists Fund." The fund supports New York- and Cuba-based artists working in all mediums. "We are trying to re-establish cultural bridges, as well as promote better understanding," Mr. Rodriguez-Cubeñas says. "The arts are a great force for bringing people together."
Cuba has a strong artistic tradition, fostered by a system that provides free higher education to those who exhibit talent. Working in old studios where both the floorboards and the pianos are splintering, the Cuban Escuela Nacional del Arte has a nationwide enrollment of more than 1,200 and has produced dancers and musicians of international acclaim. Carlos Acosta of the Houston and Royal Ballets and José Manuel Carreño of American Ballet Theater are two of the most famous alumni of this system.
Cuban artists work with a wealth of knowledge and a constant lack of the basic materials of their craft. Their persistence and resourcefulness impressed Ms. Lopez. She and Mr. Rodriguez-Cubeñas began traveling to Cuba lugging "extra suitcases filled with brushes, oils, canvases, point shoes, tights, CD's, music sheets, clay, plaster of Paris, pens -- you name it," she says.
They soon learned that carrying donations to Cuba isn't easy. Most airlines have a weight limit of 44 pounds, and point shoes are heavy. Although Air Jamaica can be softhearted regarding humanitarian aid, Marazul, which flies direct from New York to Havana, charges $3 per overweight pound. "We had no money," says Ms. Lopez. Showing their own resourcefulness, they held a benefit. Happily, they soon discovered what is now common knowledge: Cuba is hot. The fund even found support among Cuban-Americans in their 60's and 70's, frequently the most virulent enforcers of the 38-year-old United States embargo of the island.
On Tuesday, the Cuban Artists Fund will hold its second annual benefit, "New York for Cuban Artists," at Wallace Hall on Park Avenue. The fund has reason to celebrate. This October, at the International Havana Festival of Ballet, the hottest ticket will most likely be "Ballo Della Regina," which George Balanchine made for the ballerina Merrill Ashley in 1978. In March, Ms. Ashley traveled to Cuba to teach "Ballo" to the Ballet Nacional de Cuba, in the fund's first major collaboration with a Cuban arts organization.
When Ms. Lopez first considered traveling to Cuba in the early 90's, she says: "It was still dicey. My parents didn't want me to go because of repercussions in Miami. I was still actively performing in City Ballet. My mom said, 'If you come to Miami to dance, what's going to happen?' I was afraid for my mother. She was getting some funny phone calls. Her friends in the tight Cuban community where she lives said: 'I hear your daughter is going to dance in Cuba. What is she, a Communist?' " Ms. Lopez canceled her trip. A few years later, she retired from dancing, joined a WNBC news team and traveled to Cuba with other journalists. Since it took place under the aegis of the news media, her trip was overlooked by Miami Cubans. She interviewed Alicia Alonso, the artistic director of the Ballet Nacional and a former star of American Ballet Theater. Ms. Alonso lured Ms. Lopez out of retirement. (When the younger ballerina protested that she had already retired, Ms. Alonso laughed. "It's December," she said. "I'm giving you eight months to get into shape.") Ms. Lopez didn't dance again in Miami, but she danced in Havana. While there, she noticed that the Cuban repertory was distressingly light on Balanchine, and she set about remedying the situation. She thought it was essential to give the Cuban dancers firsthand information from someone who would demand the most of them. "I had a sense that Merrill and the Balanchine Trust would agree," she says.
The Balanchine Trust protects the choreographer's copyrights. (Paradoxically, because the United States and Cuba have no diplomatic relations, and intellectual property is as foreign a concept to Cuba as the Nasdaq, it's unlikely that anyone could prevent the Cubans from dancing whatever ballets they choose. On the flip side, the byzantine regulations guiding relations between Cuba and the United States specify that Cuban artists working in the United States cannot be paid.) Artistic solidarity prevailed over political punditry: the Balanchine Trust licensed "Ballo" to the Ballet Nacional for free.
Ms. Lopez still had to get Ms. Alonso's approval. "It was like visiting the Pope," she says. Ms. Alonso had hoped to get another Balanchine ballet, "Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2." Ms. Lopez felt it was too difficult for dancers unaccustomed to the Balanchine vernacular, and began to describe "Ballo."
"I kept saying, 'If you could see this, I can send you the tape.' " To which Ms. Alonso, who has had many eye operations and is almost blind, responded, "Well, Lourdes, that's just not going to help me."
Ms. Lopez described "Ballo's" "little variations, hops on point, brisées, cabrioles, tours to the knee," and the engaging energy contained in the 20 minutes the piece takes to perform.
"Que sabrosa tu eres," said Ms. Alonso ("How delicious you are").
Ms. Lopez laughs at the memory: "That was the O.K."
Ms. Ashley describes working with the Ballet Nacional as "one of the highlights" of her life in ballet. "They were so eager," she says. "I didn't have to teach the men to do double saut de basques or multiple pirouettes; they could do them at any speed." Ms. Ashley noticed an unusual camaraderie among the dancers, "all of them rooting for each other, helping, excited by each other's successes." Though the dancers lack good shoes, tights and vitamins, they have a "supportive attitude, rather than what I see in many companies -- each person trying to outshine the next to get a better role," she says.
Like Ms. Lopez, Ms. Ashley was surprised by what the dancers did without. "It didn't occur to me they wouldn't have a Band-Aid, silicone pads, normal things ballet dancers now use."
Ms. Ashley anticipates returning to Cuba in October to rehearse "Ballo" before the premiere. While Congress considers softening the embargo to permit exports of medical products to Cuba, the ballerina considers what to pack. "I'm inspired to bring a whole suitcase of dancer medical supplies," she says.
Suki John, who writes and choreographs in New York and Cuba, is working on her first book, ``Cubanilla: A Dancer in Havana.''
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/artleisure/cuba-dance.html