Every night, the Componedores de Batea dance group gets a standing ovation from the audience at the Havana carnival, with a masterly performance that keeps a 100 year-old tradition alive.
The young artistic group puts on a colourful scene of local customs existing in the early years of the Republic.
Director of the company, Javier Alba, told Prensa Latina that the company was established in 1908 in the poor quarters of Cayo Hueso, in Havana.
The history of this comparsa begins when a group of men decided to dress up as women and stage a performance based on real life events occurred in a Havana solar (slummy community house), explained Alba.
The solares are old, aristocratic mansions turned into community houses, or small multi-family rooms where the poorest lived crammed, with the patio as the most important place, "the real birth place of the rumba," he recalled, which, as we Cubans say, may even make a cripple dance.
(Cubarte)
Director of the company, Javier Alba, told Prensa Latina that the company was established in 1908 in the poor quarters of Cayo Hueso, in Havana.
The history of this comparsa begins when a group of men decided to dress up as women and stage a performance based on real life events occurred in a Havana solar (slummy community house), explained Alba.
The solares are old, aristocratic mansions turned into community houses, or small multi-family rooms where the poorest lived crammed, with the patio as the most important place, "the real birth place of the rumba," he recalled, which, as we Cubans say, may even make a cripple dance.
(Cubarte)