Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

/ARTS WEEKLY/CUBA: A Refuge for World Dance

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Jun 29 2004 (IPS) - Much of the history of dance from around the world is found in a little palace of sorts in the Cuban capital. The Museum of Dance holds items ranging from a thread of the shawl that led to dancer Isadora Duncan’s death, to documents and photographs, to dance costumes from the most remote regions of the planet.

Many visitors are fascinated by the remnant of the shawl that Duncan (1878-1927) had wrapped around her neck for warmth that fateful day it was caught in the rear wheel of an automobile and strangled her to death just as she was at the height of her fame.

”We collect the most diverse objects because dance is fed by many other arts. But among our most valuable items are books, autographed photos, letters, manuscripts and outlines of choreography,” museum curator Aleida Pellón told IPS.

This museum in the heart of Havana is the only one of its kind in Latin America and the Caribbean, and one of the few in the world specialising in collecting and exhibiting items associated with one of the oldest forms of art, according to the institution’s directors.

It took off from the moment it opened its doors in 1998, largely thanks to donations from the Cuban National Ballet and the personal objects and gifts that Cuban founder and ”prima ballerina assoluta” Alicia Alonso accumulated throughout her career.

Among the curiosities are three original folios of the first attempt at choreographic annotation, by Raoul Feuillet, printed in 1700 in France. ”It was the first effective system using a sort of pentagram to translate dance movements to the stage,” says one expert.

One of the museum’s rooms is dedicated entirely to Alonso’s career, with most of the medals, trophies and other prizes won at international dance festivals. Also on exhibit are the costumes she used during her seven decades on stage.

The costume for Gisell, Alonso’s most emblematic role, now hangs on the wooden frame that the artist used to try on, arrange or exhibit her dresses.

”The museum is a challenge for experts in preservation, who have to take care of diverse materials like paper, cloth, oil paintings, lithographs, sculptures, decorative objects and hundred-year-old publications,” said one of the curators.

Experts see the Museum of Dance’s existence in Havana as a reflection of dance itself in this Caribbean country, where for five centuries the unique qualities and creativity of the Spanish and African cultures have mixed.

An important cultural contribution to the island was the creation in October 1948 of the Alicia Alonso Ballet Company, which in 1959, after the Fidel Castro-led revolution, became the National Ballet, and continued under Alonso’s direction, funded by the state.

According to researcher Pedro Simón, lifelong companion of Alonso, the ballet company is ”one of the few – three or four tops – in the world that has its own style and an original aesthetic-choreographic projection.”

Author of many books about the history of Cuban ballet, Simón says the standout characteristics of the company are ”its authenticity of style, coherence of drama and richness of choreographic vocabulary.”

These traits have earned Cuban dance’s inclusion in the repertoire of the Opera of Paris, La Scala of Milan, the San Carlo Theatre of Naples, the Opera of Vienna and the Colón Theatre of Buenos Aires, among other world-famous venues.

The first stagings of dance in Cuba took place in the 1700s, according to historians, and gained momentum in the 1800s, when famous touring dance groups visited from Europe.

Among the most remembered visits in the 19th century was Austrian ballerina Fanny Elssler, a virtuoso of the romantic period. Also among these now legendary tours was Russia’s Anna Pavlova, who visited Cuba three times in the early 20th century.

Pavlova made her first visit in 1915, and the wealthy sugar barons were awaiting her performance with great expectation, the result of a press campaign that praised her interpretation of ”Swan Lake” in particular.

The audience was so anxious to see Pavlova that when the dance company delayed its appearance on stage a few minutes, a brawl broke out and the Russians ended up paying a fine.

The Museum of Dance has state funding, though it has received private donations to set up climate-controlled rooms and to expand its library, for which the directors are seeking a separate space and an exhaustive cataloguing effort.

These days the museum is busy getting ready for the 19th International Ballet Festival of Havana, Oct. 28-Nov. 6 – an event to take place under Alonso’s personal supervision.

She is preparing a new choreography for ”The Magic Flute”, which premiered in 1893 in the Russian city of St. Petersburg and was performed in Cuba by Pavlova during her second tour through the Caribbean in 1917.

This Magic Flute is not Mozart’s. It is based on the story of a flute that moves everyone to dance, as has occurred for centuries in Cuba, where people dance anywhere at any time, with no need for magic, much less a reason.