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Cuban ballerina Alonso to visit New York in June
By fauxpas | May 17, 2010
(More good news in addition to Silvio Rodriguez,
Alicia Alonso is coming as well. Clearly change
is in process and we should all be grateful for
the positive developments which are now taking
place as reflected in these recent occurrences.
(We can rest assured that the forces shoring up
the blockade will do what they can to obstruct
or to prevent such increasing openness toward
closer cultural ties between the United States
and Cuba. The blockadistas are nothing if not
creative, imaginative, devious and relentless.
(Those of us who want normalization of relations
between our two countries should be both pleased
and, at the same time, vigilant in defense of
all such openings on the road to fully normal
relations and a complete end to the blockade.)
===============================================
Cuban ballerina Alonso to visit New York in June
By ANNE-MARIE GARCIA (AP) – 2 hours ago
HAVANA — Cuban prima ballerina Alicia Alonso will return next month to New York and the American Ballet Theater, one of the places where she got her start in dance seven decades ago, for an early celebration of her 90th birthday.
The National Ballet of Cuba said Friday that U.S. authorities have approved a visa for the grande dame of Cuban dance and she will visit the American Ballet Theater to help mark the organization’s 70th anniversary. There was no immediate word of what kind of event is in the works.
Word of the visit comes a day after the office of Cuban folk legend Silvio Rodriguez announced plans to perform June 4 at Carnegie Hall, though Washington had yet to approve his visa.
While icy U.S.-Cuba political relations have changed little under President Barack Obama, important cultural and artistic exchanges between the two countries are fast becoming commonplace.
Born in Havana on Dec. 20, 1920, Alonso began dancing professionally in the United States, joining the American Ballet Caravan in 1937. She became part of the American Ballet Theater three years later and stayed until 1948.
“The American public has always been precious for me,” she told The Associated Press in a 2007 interview. “We grew up at the same time. Back then, American ballet wasn’t developed and we were among the first.”
Still spry, Alonso will travel to New York as part of a tour that should also take her to England and France, Cuba’s National Ballet said. Details of her itinerary are still being worked out.
Alonso co-founded the island’s National Ballet in 1949 but had to close it frequently because of money problems until Fidel Castro lent personal and financial support after taking power on New Year’s Day 1959.
She appears frequently at dance events in Havana despite her failing eyesight. Alonso has been an outspoken critic of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba for decades, but has also traveled to America relatively regularly over the years.
U.S. economic sanctions took their current form in 1962 and prohibit American tourists from coming to Cuba while choking off nearly all trade between both countries.
U.S. performers, artists and academics have been granted official permission to travel to the island for years, though many of those cultural exchanges stalled under President George W. Bush.
Cuban artists also have been allowed to travel to the United States for performances, award shows and other events, though some complained of lengthy delays in getting visas or being denied American permission with little explanation while Bush was in office.
Under the Obama administration, cultural exchanges have happened more often.
Puerto Rico’s Calle 13 openly criticized U.S. policy during a March concert in Havana and American funk and R&B pioneers Kool & the Gang came to Cuba in December. A number of top Cuban musical favorites have played Miami and other U.S. locales in recent months, including Los Van, Buena Fe and Carlos Varela.
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