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.

Casa de las Americas Musicology Award

Musicologists and music researchers from Venezuela, Uruguay, Bolivia, Brazil, Peru and Mexico, among others will participate in the 12th Casa de las Americas Musicology Award, to be in session next November 1-5.

17 works will be in competition for the award. On the sideline, the 4th International Musicology Colloquium will include conferences and workshops.

Members of the jury will be Latin American and Caribbean personalities such as: Argentinean Omar Corrado, Peruvian Chalena Vasquez, Venezuelan Mariantonia Palacios, Cubans Ana Victoria Casanova and Jesus Guanche and Argentinean Bernardo Illari as special guest.

The head of Casa de las Americas music department, Maria Elena Vinueza, remembered that Casa de las Americas Award that was founded in 1979, has created new links in the music of the region, included the Caribbean.

She said to press that the four main topics to be discussed in the debates are: Theory and critics on the history and music historiography of Latin America, Urban popular music in Latin America and the Caribbean, Organology: a field potential underestimated and Music Management and Musicology Applied. The award, created by Cuban Argeliers Leon (1918-1991), has stimulated the broadcasting and recognition of some 200 works, of great value to the musical history of our region, Vinueza said.

Exhibition of Four Decades of Contemporary Cuban Art Opened in Cuba

An exhibition of works by 50 contemporary Cuban painters of the past four decades will be on display in this city, as part of the Ibero-American Culture Fiesta.

The exhibition is made up of 70 works by renowned artists, among them Alfredo Sosabravo, Zaida del Rio, Nelson Dominguez, Belkis Ayon, Flora Fong, Manuel Lopez Oliva, Arturo Montoto, Alicia Leal, Agustin Bejarano and Roberto Diago. It will be exhibited at the Main Hall of the Provincial Center of Art.

The exhibition is part of the collection of the National Council of Plastic Arts. The collection show different techniques like oil on canvas, engraving, serigraphy holography and digital photography.

Another inauguration was opened dedicated to the Bicentennial Independence of several Latin American countries, with paintings and pictures by Cosme Proenza and Liborio Noval, among other artists.

The Ibero-American Culture Fiesta is underway in the eastern city of Holguin, known as the City of Parks, with artistic delegations from 15 European and Latin American countries in attendance.

The event includes a Ibero-American Letters Colloquium, audiovisual exhibitions, literary lectures and street concerts. The closing of the event will take place in Cayo Bariay key on Thursday, on October 28. Cayo Bariay was the site where Christopher Columbus landed on the same day and month of 1492.

Samsara Ballet to Close Havana Ballet Festival

The ballet Samsara, one of the latest works by Spanish choreographer Victor Ullate, will be presented to a Cuban audience at the closing ceremony of the International Ballet Festival in Havana, on November 7.

The press office of the National Ballet of Cuba said that 18 ballet dancers will perform in a ritual seeking an approach to spirituality through a dialogue between Eastern and Western cultures, which begins with music composed by ethnic groups from Iran, India, Egypt, Nepal, China, and Japan.

Victor Ullate is an important figure in Spanish culture, a ballet dancer, choreographer, and indispensable professor, and recently has been heading the Primeros Pasos (First Steps) Foundation, aimed at recruiting children from shelters to teach them to dance.

He started his career in 1962 and was a member of the Antonio Ruiz Soler Ballet Company, and of Maurice Bejart's del Ballet del Siglo XX.

Ullate has collaborated with the National Ballet of Cuba and others. After leading various ballet companies in Spain, he found his own ballet company, Madrid Community Ballet.

Graziella Pogolotti, an Unquestionable Cuban

Cuban critic, essayist Graziella Pogolotti reaffirmed her unquestionable, intact Cuban identity despite her European origin and her early years there.

I didn't know Cuba until I was seven years old, but the everyday life and experiences were crucial in forming my identity, she said in a meeting with the public at Pabellon Cuba exhibit center.

She referred to the influence of her father, painter Marcelo Pogolotti, and other intellectuals who visited her home every day.

"Figures of the intellectual vanguard of the time frequented my house, including painters Victor Manuel and Carlos Enrique, as well as writer Lino Novas Calvo and politician Raul Roa, among others," recalled the Paris born writer (1932).

Answering a question about her first steps in the art world, Pogolotti recalled that when she was a child, a book shelf fell near her and she was immediately surrounded by everyone in the house, "a premonition of the fate held in store for me," she said.

On national culture and the way it is currently assumed by young people, Pogolotti highlighted the need to discuss the link between the concept of culture and nation.

"Cuban culture is a thread of continuity, and, fortunately, there is still a long way to go," she concluded.

Happy about Seville and London Tributes

The director of the National Ballet of Cuba, Alicia Alonso returned to Cuba with the lingering taste of tributes she received in Spain and the United Kingdom for her 90th birthday.

In a brief conference after arriving at Jose Marti International Airport, she gratefully recalled the tributes paid to her in the Maestranza in Seville and in London's Covent Garden, where the Royal Ballet offered a gala to celebrate her birthday, history and contributions to dance.

From the royal box of the theater, she presided over the function and heard the praises of the company's director Monica Mason, crowned by a standing ovation in her honour, repeated at the end when she came out to greet the stage.

Ready for the international ballet festival to be held in Havana from October 28 to November 7, she spoke with enthusiasm about the 12 choreographies that will premiere, particularly three of her own: Impromptu, devoted to Ernesto Lecuona, Narciso's Death, a tribute to José Lezama Lima on his centenary, and The Night of the Eclipse.