• Submitted by: manso
• Arts and Culture
• Dance
• 09 / 04 / 2010

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Updated Fri Sep 3, 2010 11:06am AEST. 'Unique energy and bravura': Don Quixote is said to be the Cubans' signature ballet.

Just one year after Brisbane audiences turned out for the opulent Paris Opera Ballet, the Queensland capital is hosting another world-class classical dance troupe.

The Ballet Nacional de Cuba, still headed by the company's 89-year-old founder Alicia Alonso, will be performing Don Quixote as part of what Brisbane Festival promoters are calling a "Cuban cultural invasion".

Leo Schofield, who was responsible for bringing out the Paris Opera Ballet in 2009, hopes the event will draw local and interstate crowds just as the sell-out French performance did.

But Mr Schofield says audiences should not expect the glamour of the Paris Opera Ballet - "the most extravagantly funded ballet in the world".

"It's impossible to talk about Cuba without talking about politics," he told ABC News Online.

"There's not the kind of prosperity and sponsorship and any of those things that we in the West take for granted; the interaction between commerce and culture doesn't exist.

"They have persisted and they have perservered (despite the US economic embargo) and I'm so full of admiration for Alicia Alonso. They've done it on a shoestring. Of course the costumes aren't glitzy and glamorous. But if they came out in black tights, they would still be exciting because the dancing has this unique energy and bravura.

"The costumes are a bit old fashioned, but Havana is old-fashioned. Imagine stopping a country, 50 years ago ... it's like a fly in amber, that's its great appeal."

Mr Schofield says what was once seen as an insularity from other dance companies around the world is now evaporating.

He says Don Quixote is the Cubans' signature ballet and will give the dancers "a chance to showcase a lot of spectacular technique".

'Year of Cuban culture'

Ballet is not the only part of Cuba's cultural heritage Brisbane audiences can experience this year.

Grammy-winning dance band Los Van Van stopped by on a tour in August, and Brisbane Festival organisers also included Danza Contemporanea de Cuba and the a capella sextet Vocal Sampling in their September program.

The situation has led Cuban ambassador Abelardo Curbelo Padron to declare 2010 as "the year of Cuban culture in Australia".

He told ABC News Online that the arts are an important way for Australians to get to know the Cuban character.

"Cuba has a strong cultural potency: in dance, in music, in painting, and other areas," he said.

"A lot of people don't know where Cuba is, but everyone would know that the cha-cha-cha, the mambo and the son come from Cuba."

It is the second time the national ballet company has visited Australia.

Cuban nationals must have their government's permission to travel overseas, and for most Cubans this means travel is heavily restricted.

But the ambassador's wife, Maria Esther Garcia Gonzalez, says Cuban dancers have long had the opportunity to travel overseas and represent their homeland.

As a dancer with the Ballet Nacional de Cuba, she toured Europe and danced at the Champs Elysees in 1966, at the age of 16.

"It's a way to project Cuban culture, but also a way to ensure that Cuban talent - in the areas of ballet for example - can become well-known internationally," she said.

"It's all about interpretation, and when it comes to the Cuban interpretation, it's one that's very close to the Cuban way of living and its idiosyncracies."

Ballet Nacional de Cuba performs Don Quixote at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre from September 24 to October 3.

The Brisbane Festival runs from September 4 to September 25.

By Rosanna Ryan

Source: www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/03/3001573.htm