© James Rowbotham Ballet Nacional de Cuba reviews Ballet Nacional de Cuba - Spring 2010 London Coliseum visit www.balletcuba.cult.cu Danza Contemporanea de Cuba reviews Danza Contemporanea de Cuba - Spring 2010 Uk Tour Danza Contemporanea web page James specialises in the still photography of dance and other dynamic performing arts, having acquired the techniques of freezing motion at a workshop in New York with Lois Greenfield and has worked with numerous individual dancers and dance companies. He has worked in theatres, dance and photographic studios and on location. The visit to the Ballet Nacional was courtesy of the Cuban Ministry of Culture. Samples of his work can be found at: www.perfectlandscape.com

I was in the rehearsal rooms of Danza Contemporànea at the Teatro Nacional in Havana, Cuba and had already spent the best part of the previous three days photographing ballet classes and rehearsals as a guest of the Ballet Nacional de Cuba. The Ballet Nacional’s hospitality was superb but this day was meant to be different …. here was a contemporary dance company, not more ballet surely … yet they all have to be fully ballet trained and this was ballet class day. Firstly the men and then the girls. Each in turn working the barres and the open dance floor. And not only did I have to contend once more with the awful inevitable orange colour cast that can arise in digital still photography when certain fluorescent lighting compliments natural daylight but also a group of students armed with an assortment of video cameras. Hardly the best start to the day.

In their own good time the classes came to their conclusion. Following a break the dancers reappeared refreshed and took their allotted positions on the floor. They turned to face the front and waited patiently. Music started to play …..a crescendo and “Hey Mambo!” …. in a heartbeat the day turned right around. Something special was clearly about to unfold …and this was only a rehearsal.

Later George Céspedes, the choreographer, explained the concept behind his Mambo 3xxi. This is a dance for the third millennium, 21st century… the way kids might dance in clubs of the future. Extremely athletic kids moving to an intoxicating rhythm! No room for couch potatoes in George’s world. And it is coming to the UK early in 2010, courtesy of the Dance Consortium, Dance East and Sadler’s Wells.

This won’t be the first time that Danza Contemporànea have performed in the UK. Previously they brought Tocororo; Carlos Acosta’s own story choreographed by, and danced with, the man himself. That gives a clue as to how good these kids are. Acosta is on record as saying that these are “some of the best dancers I have ever danced with”. I’ll buy that. Carlos of course heralds from the Ballet Nacional and is merely on loan to the Royal Ballet in London. Another piece the company have performed in the UK is Demo-n/Crazy, a work by London based choreographer Rafael Bonachela; specially commissioned for them by Dance East and also included in the programme of the forthcoming tour.

I had found myself in Cuba as a fully accredited representative of the Prensa Extranjero; there to photograph dance. The trip had been a real challenge to organise …the interweb revolution has somehow ignored Cuba and the whole thing might have never happened without the very helpful assistance of the Cuban Embassy in London, the British Council in Cuba and Assis Carreiro of Dance East. Somehow it all came together at the eleventh hour. By magic.

Dance can make a great subject for photography and I became hooked shooting Tango in Buenos Aires on a business trip some years earlier. Prior to that I can hardly remember watching dance since ghostly ballet artists appeared on the 9inch black and white television of my childhood. How things change! I would never have imagined that once day I could be producing super sharp ballet images of my own let alone having the temerity to have suggested to one of the worlds leading dancers that his autobiography would have benefitted from more images of him in action. Next time Carlos.

Several inspiring days spent shooting general rehearsals with the wonderful Birmingham Royal Ballet had captured my imagination and as a consequence the original dates for the visit had been set around shooting staged performances with the Ballet Nacional. These days about half my shoots are ballet related and this was a chance to include a wider international dimension. For one reason and another dates did not match and the week eventually started in the Ballet Nacional’s Sala Azul studio. The day before there had been an unusually heavy tropical storm bequeathing overcast skies. Natural daylight in the resulting gloom coupled with that fluorescent lighting would make a challenging combination for any fly on the wall trying to freeze motion in a large dance studio under available light. The nature of the work did not lend itself to flash photography and it had been hard work. I try to work to a high standard and have to confess to wanting more from my top end Nikon.

The Ballet Nacional had provided Myrna Quinõnes, a wonderful lady, to assist me and interpret. “That’s the next Carlos Acosta” she said, picking out Ociel Gound, a spectacular young colt poured into Cambridge blue tights. “This man Carlos wants to take to the Royal Ballet” she added later, introducing me to José Carlos Losada. “Alicia hasn’t agreed yet. Alicia makes all the decisions.” Cuba is dance. Alicia Alonso is the Ballet Nacional. I began to wonder whether Alicia had determined the need for my admission to the Prensa Extranjero.

Whilst with the Ballet Nacional, I was to witness rehearsals of excerpts from: a Nutcracker destined for Toronto Christmas audiences, La Fille Malgardée, and Después del Diluvio by Cuban Alberto Mendez. In Después del Diluvio the dancers create extraordinary moving human structures. Simply amazing.

Despite the last part of the shoot with principal dancer Deyron Vera being abandoned due to poor light there are a good number of captures of which I can feel very happy with. Luckily the sun had kindly obliged, if fleetingly, earlier on the final day when soloist Grettel Morejón and partner Dani Hernandez made a timely appearance adding some dramatic backlit images to the prior days’ collection.

The Ballet Nacional are also coming to the UK in the spring of 2010 with Magia de la Danza. It’s a mixed bill and, yes, Carlos will be dancing with them. Sadly British audiences will have to wait until a future opportunity to enjoy Después del Diluvio.

The first ever full run through of Mambo 3xxi took place in the studios at the Teatro Nacional on October 23rd. As on the previous day it followed a dance class… and the 23rd was the day for the modern class. That day all the stars lined up. The sun shone, the light was superb and my lens found itself in pole position facing the dancers. The front line up included Osnel Delgado, Yaday Ponce and Jenny Nocedo. The class, vigorously conducted by Yoerlis Brunet to the incessant rhythm of conga drumming, was a performance in its own right. The dancers strutted their stuff, glistening with sweat in the stifling studio with no air-conditioning. I couldn’t have wished for more. To my eyes the numerous images of Yaday reveal near dance perfection. Let alone Mambo 3xxi; pop that modern class on stage at Sadler’s Wells and a standing ovation should be virtually guaranteed. On October 24th choreographer Mats Ek arrived to work with the company on a new piece, again for the forthcoming UK tour.

I had previously privately photographed several dancers who had enjoyed the benefit of Cuban training: Jamaican dancer Shelley Maxwell and friends, Ramón Diaz and Jean Michel Sinisterra Muñoz come to mind, all very talented. I was very keen to see the real thing for myself. And it’s a reasonably small world too… “Yes I know Shelley. My mum taught her” Osnel revealed.

To a man, all the Cuban dancers I saw at Ballet Nacional or Danza Contemporanea, whether ballet or contemporary, were highly gymnastic. I don’t think I saw a single dancer who could not do box splits or more in mid air flight. The training is nothing if not regular and intensive. “Disciplina, entrega, trabajo y el amor por la Danza” is the order of the day.

The last afternoon was spent with Isabel Bustos’s Danza Teatro Retazos in a dress rehearsal for a physical theatre performance of Las lunas de Lorca. Even a top end digital camera with fast glass cannot hope to cope with range of light that the eye can and, with black clad dancers performing in an appallingly low level of “moon” light, this proved to be an exercise in damage limitation. Despite that I find the captures a fascinating record of the patterns woven by sleeveless arms emerging from the black space.

During the week the dance tourist in me had also been well satisfied. There had been a chance encounter with a young ballerina sporting a gorgeous red tutu for an exhibition shoot with a local photographer, a visit to the colourful Tropicana show with its outrageous costumes, the much more ethnic Sunday morning rhumba sessions on Callejón de Hamel and flamenco performances at El Mesón de la Flota. Cuba really is dance ….and dance is Cuba. And as far as general tourist photography goes in Havana …well, there is so much of interest I would hardly know where to begin.

I now have several gigabytes of images to work with and invitations to return to Cuba for the 2010 spring street dance and autumn ballet festivals. We all have both Danza Contemporànea and Ballet Nacional to look forward to. Don’t miss them.

“Have you exhibited internationally?” Isabel inquired. “Maybe 2010 in Cuba, just maybe” I pondered.