Cuban Boys' Ballet Costumes


Figure 1.--.

Cuba in ballet as in much else is raically different than much of the rest of Latin America. Throughout much of the rest of the region, little regard is given to ballet and the general attitude is that boy's doing ballet are sissies. Not in Cuba. Since the Revolution, ballet dancers have become stars--assuming the cult status of movie an rock stars among young Cubans. Balllet is no elite art form on this tropical island.

Foundation

Cuba as in many other small Latin American countries had a few dance small schools, mostly in Havana. The pupils came from wealthy are affluent middle class families that could afford the lessons. Virtually all the students were girls. Productions and standars were not notable. This changed with Castro's 1959 Revolution. The new Government provied state support to the arts and this include ballet. Certainly the Cuban 20-year relationship with the Soviets who also are enthusiastic with ballet helped to build a ballet traddition on this tropical island. State support meant that Cuba's fledling National Ballet , founed only in 1948, could focus on dance rather than fund raising.

Popularity

Cuba in ballet as in much else is raically different than much of the rest of Latin America. Throughout much of the rest of the region, little regard is given to ballet and the general attitude is that boy's doing ballet are sissies. Not in Cuba. Since the Revolution, ballet dancers have become stars--assuming the cult status of movie an rock stars among young Cubans. Cuba's ballet sensation in 2001 is 18-year old Rolando Sarabia--Sarabita to his adoring fans.

Ballet performances in Cuba do not just attract greying, well-heeled theatergoers in formal dress as is often the case in the Unite States. Rather in Cuba the ballet performances attract young people, many not much older than star performers like Sarabita. Filling the seats and standing room areas are attractive young women in short skirts and single-guys in "T"-shirts and jeans. Ballet is not an elite art form in Cuba. Everyone seems to go. Tickets are cheap. There are many performances. Audiances are appreciative and responsive.

While ballet was not notably popular in Cuban before the Revolution, dance was. Some on the island are fond of saying that Cubans learn to dance before they walk. Ballet has gradually become in Cuba a passaion comparable to boxing and baseball. Ismael Albelo, a dance specilaist at the ministry of culture says that "Dance is in our skin and blood. It's part of our identity, a very important part of our identity. The two cultures that formed our identity are dancing ones." This refers to the Spanish Conquistadors who desimated the native population and imported African slaves to toil in the fields. The dancing traditions that emerged were rumba and salsa among others. Ballet is a much more recent development.

Government Support

Much of Cuba's succes in ballet is due to the strngth and work of one woman--Alicia Alonso. She convinced a young Comandante Fidel Castro fresh from his Revolutionary victories that Cuba needed a world-class national ballet company an a national training system to feed it. Alonso was a primier dancer in America who left at the height of her career to found a dance company in Cuba.

Successes

Tiny tropical Cuba today competes at international events with ballet power-houses like Russia and comes away with its share of medals. Probany percapita more than medals than American dancers earn. Cuba has also helped propel dancers like José Manuel CArreno and Carlos Acosta to the top ranks of the ballet world and reluctantly lost them to major ballet companies. Cuba's National Ballet now numbers 70 dancers and makes frequent internatiional tours.

Cuban Style

Alonso maintains that what destinguishs Cuban ballet is the accent and quickness of the dancers. She believes that her dancers are particularly adroit on their turns. Observers are often impressed with male dancers in Cuba who have attracted the attentiin of the international spotlight. Alonso says that regaring the male dancers that "We teach first the style of the different ballets, and second to dances with movement that is stronger and more sharp and vigorous than the woman. And he must be concious that he is dancing with a woman as a partner, must treat her as something delicate. So that the dance of men and women is a contrast."

Another destinguishing aspect of Cuban ballet is the racial balance of the dancers. While black Cubans perhaps don't reach the level of the general Cuban populatiion, there are probably proportionally more black dancers in Cuba than any where else in the modern dance world. This is primarily a reflection of Cuba's free schools an the opportunities created by the Revolution.

Promotion

The Goverment has not only supported ballet itself, but launched a education program. Performances were held in the provinces. There were even performances in sugar cane fields--a symbolic act in a country's whosee economy has been so tied to sugar and in which field workers were once terribly neglected. Dancers were trucked to factories and the countryside to introduce dance to the people. The result has been a nation of knowlegeable balletgoers.

Recruitment

Once Government support was obtained with Castro's approval, the National Ballet could begin to expand. Talent scouts were sent all over Cuba to look for talent. Often they focused on orphanages. The children selected often had no idea where they werrre going, but they were delighted to be leaving the orphanages. One such boy was Jorge Esquivel who became a primier dance and won a gold medal at the international ballet competition at Varna, Bulgaria. (Esquivel has since defected and dances and teaches at the San Francisco Ballet.)

Authorities established feeder schools in all of the provinces where children from Grade 1-5 are trained. This would be children about 5-11 years old. Those students thus compete through examination for places at middle schools in Camuguey and Havana. Graduates aare selected through subsequent competive examination for the upper school, the National School for Ballet in Havana which supplies dancers for the Natioal Ballet. Ballet training as all education is free and strictly limited to state institutions. (No private chools are permitted.) Ballet training in Cuba, however, is not for diversion or fitness or to fulfill a parental esire to promote culture. Ballet is taught as a profession. It has provide a way for poor children to escape from poverty. Often parents incourage a promising child to persue ballet just for that rason. As with all Cubans, dancers in Cuba receive only subsistence pay checks--although they are high by Cuban standards. If they suceed, however, they can earn vastly more through overseas guest appearances.

Problems

The basic problem in Cuba is that despite state support, resources are very limited. Pianos are hard to maintain in stramy tropical Cuba. Facilities are nmot air conditioned. Dancers practice on splintered floors even at the National School of Ballet. Prctices shoes are pateched and heald together with tape. Primier dancers leave for the international stage. This was once possible only by defecting. Now dancers are able to negotiate less drastic exits to the international stage.

Costumes

HBC has no information on ballet costuming in Cuba. Little informatiin is avialble on practice costuming. WE do know that limited budgets and low salaries mean that little money is available for practice costumes. Such ciostumes are usually batterred, patched. and tattered--especially danccing shoes and slippers. Performances rely heavily on the classics, but we do not know at this time just how they are costumed.







Christopher Wagner





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Created: February 4, 2001
Last updated: Februarry 4, 2001