Travels of Cuban Ballet Lizt Alfonso  

TONI PIÑERA

The Lizt Alfonso Ballet Company has just returned from a short but fruitful tour of Martinique, where it participated in the well-known Fort de France Festival and got standing ovations from the public in its two presentations. Around this time every year, the event brings together important dance troupes from the world over –Cuba’s National Ballet Company attended the event in 1996.

Thus, the audience acknowledged the work of a different and original group that performs anywhere on the planet accompanied by professionalism and discipline, the mother of success. For its first tour of the Caribbean, the company interpreted a varied program that included Malagueña,Andalucía, Tango del tiempo, Alas para existir, Hombre and De tierra y Aire, in its first part, and fragments of a dance now in preparation for the 20th anniversary of the group (El vecindario, Los amantes, Al compás and Pa Cuba me voy) in which it combines a variety of rhythms in a way that no-one is capable of identifying the "stitches" uniting them, and where dynamism and artistic rigor –tinged with passion for dance- pervade the lively choreography of Lizt Alfonso. Added to this should be the work of the accompanying music group directed by Yuniel Rascón -one of the main characteristics of the artistic work of a company that not by chance leaves a favorable trail wherever it performs.

In Martinique, the most recent "port" called at by the Lizt Alfonso Ballet, it left the imprint of a act of essential communication. Our first tour of the Caribbean was "a wonderful experience -Lizt Alfonso told this newspaper- during which we could notice the details making us so diverse and at the same time so equal and rich in culture. That’s why the excellent connection we made from stage between the souls of both the members of the audience and the artists was not surprising. The public absolutely identified with our art, and showed great respect and admiration towards Cuba."

Now, the artistic compass of Lizt Alfonso points to eastern Camagüey province, where her troupe will carry out several presentations at the Principal Theater at the beginning of August, but first, they will dance on August 3 (7:00 p.m.) at the García Lorca Hall of Havana’s Grand Theater, to close the second stage of the company’s 18th Summer Course.

Source: Granma