International Homage to Alicia Alonso 

An international program to mark the 90th birthday of Prima Ballerina Assoluta Alicia Alonso, director of the Cuban National Ballet (BNC, by its Spanish acronym), started last Friday in Las Tunas city, 670 kms to the east of Havana.

Alonso arrived in Las Tunas last week accompanied by a representation of the BNC, as part of a tour through several cities of the country that will mark the beginning of a series of activities in honor of the world-known ballerina and choreographer.

The program presented last week end included: "A concert in Black and White," a piece representative of neoclassicism in Cuba, and "Adagio of the Rose," one of the most famous scenes of "The Sleeping Beauty of the Forest," among others.

The leading roles were performed by first dancers like Viensay Valdés, Sadaise Arencibia, Yanela Piñera, Leandro Pérez, Camilo Ramos and Yanier Gómez.

Likewise, the didactic show "An encounter with dance: technique, expression and style," by the BNC´s historian Miguel Cabrera was staged, and the book "De la semilla al fruto: la compañía," about the BNC history by journalist Jose Luis Estrada Betancourt, with the Juventud Rebelde daily news, was presented.

Alicia Alonso is one of the most outstanding personalities in the history of dance and the top figure of ballet in Iberian America.

She was born on December 21, 1920, in Havana, where she started to take ballet lessons in the Ballet School of the Pro-Art Musical Society in 1931.

Later on, she moved to the United States where she continued her training as a dancer with Enrico Zanfretta, Alexandra Fedórova and several eminent professors of the American Ballet School. Her professional career started in 1938, when she debuted in Broadway with the musical comedies ´Great Lady´ and ´Stars in Your Eyes´.

Back in Havana, she founded in 1948 the Alicia Alonso Ballet that later became the Cuban National Ballet. As director of the company, Alonso has guided several generations of Cuban dancers with her own style that has won her a significant place in the international ballet.

Cubarte Translation Staff