International Ballet Festival of Havana Began

The 22nd International Ballet Festival of Havana will be hosting world class dancers and companies for 10 days. the event is a contribution to the peace that the world needs, as put by prima ballerina assoluta Alicia Alonso, whose 90th birthday is being feted by this year's festival.

President Raul Castro and other important personalities of Culture and Cuban society attended the opening of the Ballet Festival with the participation of leading companies and artists from many countries.

At the opening gala, Alonso received the first of several tributes, with the screening of the documentary Alicia Alonso, So That Giselle Will Not Die, part of a Spanish television series on "essential" personalities.

During the gala, Impromptu Lecuona, one of the three choreographies created by Alonso for this ocassion, was premiered, with prima ballerina Barbara Garcia in the lead role and 50 dancers on stage.

Havana will be the center of a real ballet fiesta, until November 7, with guests from 18 countries, such as the American Theatre Ballet, back in Cuba after half a century; Russians Vladimir Vasiliev and Vladimir Malakhov of the Berlin Opera, and Spanish ballerina Tamara Rojo.

Other visitors include artists from the New York City Ballet, the Royal Ballet of London, the English National Ballet, the Ballet of the Berlin Opera, the Ballet of Teatro Colon from Argentina, and Sodre National Ballet directed by Julio Bocca.

Bocca, director of the National Ballet of the Official Radio, Television and Show Services will be accompanied by 10 dancers.

In a press conference at the Adela Reta National Auditorium of Montevideo before coming to Havana, Bocca said he is hoping to show in his performances in our city that the Uruguayan ballet is being reborn.

He is also expecting to present to the world Uruguayan figures and the company he has created.

Bocca said it was very important to him to return to Havana and the Ballet Festival where he has danced so many times, along with many other great companies of the world.

Since its creation, the festival has had more than 1,000 guests from 61 countries in five continents, and featured 800 performances, including 219 world premieres.

The 22nd International Ballet Festival of Havana is a unique moment for artistic exchange between leading figures in the world of dance, celebrities, critics, scholars and entrepreneurs, as well as a unique opportunity for fans of this event to come together in this unforgettable dance festival.

This Festival, which has a biannual main headquarters as usual has its main venues at the Grand Theater of Havana, the Mella Theater, Karl Marx Theater and Teatro Lázaro Peña in Havana city while the Teatro Sauto, in Matanzas, Teatro La Caridad, in Santa Clara, and the Teatro Tunas, in eastern Cuba, will be the subsites of the event.