30 Beautiful Latinas
We went to the sold-out performance of Lizt Alfonso’s Dance Cuba at Cleveland Museum of Art last Wed.
The curtain went up on the company’s seven musicians playing Malaguena, a song at once familiar to North Americans and quintessentially Spanish, by the Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona. The musicians were soon joined by the dancers playing their castinets off stage, “Clack! Clackety clack clack,” in a unison both amazing and ferocious.
About seven minutes long, the first dance provided an introduction to the company’s primary virtues, beautiful dancers, beautiful costumes and an elegant mix of flamenco and ballet danced in unusually precise unison. Of particular interest to us was the way the company also incorporated more and more Afro-Cuban rhythms and movement into the dancing as the concert progressed.
Each of the eight dances in Fuerza y Compas, the first half of the program, brought on a group of dancers in different costumes. After Malaguena it was Andalucia with four girls in pink, again with the long skirts. Then eight girls in polka dots, then two women in long blue gowns whose trains were manipulated like set-pieces. And throughout Fuerza y Compas we saw more and more of the swaying hips and flying skirts of the rhumba.
For the final dance of Fuerza y Compas, the women appeared in trousers, which allowed them to show nice unison turns and jumps. At several moments in this dance all 15 dancers stood on pointe together, something of a feat in flamenco shoes without a shank.
Many of the dances ended with applause-getting freezes and then continued with tightly choreographed encores.
After the intermission the dancers entered wearing tights and halter tops, their flawless bare midriffs reflecting well on the company’s physical trainer, Dora Sanchez. Canes and heel clicks provided percussion for a dance full of African elements.
A flamenco solo, Elogio, demonstrated the company’s commitment to positive emotion and smiling faces at all times.
Pa’ Cuba Me Voy brought more rhumba, more African elements, and even broader smiles and more exuberant dancing, but preserved company unison and elegance.
The final dance of the evening brought the dancers back in their original red dresses. Applause-getting false endings cued encores in which the dancers chanted “Si” and “No” in a call and response form.
We sat back like happy tourists in a Havana nightclub, replete after an unusually classy tropical revue.
The star of Lizt Alfonso’s Dance Cuba is their dance style, which skillfully incorporates classical ballet, flamenco, African dance forms, and popular Cuban dances into an elegant, joyous concert performance. They’ve chosen to entertain, rather than bring us dark and tragic insights. Of all the places where the people and cultures of Africa and Spain met and mixed in the New World, Cuba has perhaps put forth the most beautiful flowering of music and dance, and in this Lizt Alfonso’s Dance Cuba is Cuba’s eloquent envoy.
Lizt Alfonso’s Dance Cuba performed at Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium on Wed 10/27/2010 as part of CMA’s VIVA & Gala Performing Arts Series. Find the full VIVA schedule at http://ClevelandArt.org.
From Cool Cleveland contributors Elsa Johnson and Victor Lucas. Elsa and Vic are both longtime Clevelanders. Elsa is a landscape designer. She studied ballet as an avocation for 2 decades. Vic has been a dancer and dance teacher for most of his working life, performing in a number of dance companies in NYC and Cleveland. They write about dance as a way to learn more and keep in touch with the dance community. E-mail them at vicnelsaATearthlink.net.