Behind the Scenes of the National Ballet of Cuba

For 3 weeks during January 2002, I woke up early every morning and got out into the streets of Cuba to photograph, shooting all day and into the evening.  I also went to as many photography exhibits as I could fit in -- it was International Photography Month, and Havana had some great exhibits going on.

With only a couple of days left in Cuba, there was still one photography exhibit I wanted to see that I had not made the time for.  Our group had a young local photography assistant, Leysi, who had an exhibit of her work hanging in an art center.  I had some gotten some nice shots and was beginning to wrap everything up to head home to America, so I decided to try to find this art center and see Leysi's exhibit.

Not able to speak Spanish, I certainly couldn't read it.  I had learned to communicate and navigate with charades (and had gotten pretty good at it!).  I found the art center.  It was a gorgeous, huge, colonial building.  Sadly, the small gallery inside it with Leysi's exhibit was closed.  Still, the building was so beautiful, I took a few minutes to simply absorb it.

The architecture was amazing, yet becoming quite dilapidated.  The paint was peeling, the windows were cracked and broken -- everything was tired and worn.  Yet the columns and structure were intact, and the light coming through the enormous windows was perfect.  With my camera over my shoulder and my tripod strapped to my day pack, I began wandering around -- not shooting, just looking.

Almost immediately, a man came running over to me very excited, and not in a good way, saying many words very fast that I did not understand.  I asked him in English if he spoke English.  He said 'No'.  Pointing to my camera and tripod, and using charades, he told me to leave.  I definitely understood this.

As I stood there with him, taking one last look around this beautiful space, he asked me where I was from (I had learned that much).  When I told him the United States, tears came into his eyes.  He nodded, looked me square in the eye, and using charades, told me I could take 1 or 2 shots, but I could not use my tripod or my flash, and my camera should be hidden.

At that moment a dancer glided past -- the image is below.

We were standing near a room with dancers in it, so I pointed - asking if I could get a couple of shots - he nodded.  Those shots are below.

I knew we were both taking a chance at that point with my camera.  I turned to thank him, assuming I would be on my way.  He then took a really big chance, and did what so many Cubans had done when they learned we were from America -- he asked if I would come back tomorrow to get a few letters to mail to his relatives in America (if you missed my first post, our group was in Cuba shortly after 9/11, and we discovered that the Cubans had no way to communicate with their people in America.  Many of them asked us to mail letters for them on our return).

I told him I would.  The next day I returned with a girl from our group, Calla, who was fluent in Spanish.  I wanted to know what this place was, and who were the dancers.  We found the man, and this is what we learned:

We were in the National Cultural Center for the Arts, and the dancers were the National Ballet of Cuba.  This is where they practiced and performed, and no tourists or photographers were allowed there.  Still, he offered to show us around, and said that I could take more photographs as long as I did not use my tripod or my flash, and kept my camera as hidden as possible.  The secrecy of it and the fact that no flash was allowed obviously had a very significant effect on the tone of the images.  To me, it made them especially haunting and beautiful.

 

The beauty of the building gave me pause, along with a certain cast of light coming perfectly through the windows.  But the real beauty was definitely the dancers.  Excellence, discipline and beauty are flourishing through the National Ballet of Cuba -- so much so, that the cracked windows and peeling paint become invisible.  The dancers in the National Ballet of Cuba inspired me deeply in 2002, and they continue to inspire me today in 2012 -- they are Rife with Life.  I hope you have enjoyed this visit - Behind the Scenes of the National Ballet of Cuba.