| Wharton Center dance commission
looks to Cuban culture By Nathalie Winans. April 13, 2005.
lansingcitypulse.com. For
Frank Chaves, artistic director of River North Chicago Dance Company, creating
"Habaneras, the Music of Cuba" was a labor of love as bittersweet as
his feelings for a Cuba he never knew. River North Chicago Dance Company Present
the world premiere of "Habaneras," commissioned by the Wharton Center
at 8 p.m. Fri., April 15. $15-$28. For reservations call 1-800-WHARTON."Habaneras,"
the latest in a series of world premiere commissions by the Wharton Center, opens
Friday for a one-night-only performance. Chaves was born in Havana, but
his family fled to Miami shortly after Fidel Castro's rise to power. "We
were truly one of the last flights that actually left Cuba," Chaves says.
"My mother was on the plane with three children, all two years apart, I was
6 months old, and they held my father and interrogated him for five or six hours.
So my mom was sitting there with three children not knowing if her husband would
make it on the plane or not." With no recollection of the country he'd
left behind, Chaves found other ways to experience his heritage. "Leaving
there when I was 6 months old, I didn't remember anything, so my impressions of
Cuba were everything that I'd heard from my family as a child growing up."
His childhood was filled with family accounts of the good old days. "I
grew up hearing about this wonderful life that they'd had, and certainly also
hearing about how the country was being destroyed through Communism. As I got
older, I finally got to see some clips of Cuba on television and just see it so
destroyed and so ruined - it's not the Cuba that I necessarily want to know. The
Cuba that I grew up with in my head is the Cuba that I would like to hang on to." Thanks
to his father, Chaves also grew up listening to Cuban music. "My whole idea
really started with the major composer that I used, whose name is Ernesto Lecuona
- he's reminiscent of the sweeping sounds of the movie musicals from the '30s
and '40s, with a real classical edge. So that's where it really started. I grew
up on these albums that my dad played, and that was the true inspiration behind
this work." Despite that inspiration, creating "Habaneras"
- his longest work to date - was an arduous task. "It was the most difficult
time I've ever had in choreographing a piece of work," Chaves says. "I
wanted to pay homage to my heritage, but it was difficult because Cuba has never
been my home. So it got even more involved and more emotional because when I think
of home and when I think of being Cuban, what I think of is my family, and that's
what it really represents for me. It was very emotional and actually very stressful."
Originally set on choreographing "Habaneras" as his own interpretation
of Cuban music, Chaves hesitated at first. "When people hear you're doing
a piece about Cuban music, they immediately think they're gonna see salsa and
cha-cha and merengue, and this was not that at all." After some exploration,
Chaves returned to his original idea, with the music as his muse. "If I went
back to what was truly in my heart and close to my heart, then that was the right
decision. That was what was going to enable me to create the best possible piece
of work that I could." Despite the rose-tinted stories of his childhood,
Chaves sought a more balanced vision for "Habaneras," alluding to life
before and after the revolution. "I wanted to include a couple of vocal songs
that were very representative of the real raw power and emotional, passionate
energy that Latin and Cuban people have in particular, that spoke to the hardships
and difficulties that the country had gone through." Chaves has been
with River North Chicago for much of its 15-year history. He joined the company
in 1992 as a choreographer, becoming co-artistic director in 1994 and sole artistic
director in May 2001. He is quick with an eloquent explanation of his inspiration
in dance: "For me, it's really being able to physically move through space
and have your body be your voice. I've not experienced anything that has ever
matched and given me that kind of fulfillment. It's that freedom to move through
space with all your own intention and emotion coming to the surface. To really
be a wonderful dancer, you have to make yourself very vulnerable, and getting
to that place of vulnerability is very gratifying, very satisfying, in the sense
of connecting on such a level with yourself. That feeling is really, really hard
to beat." Chaves will offer a preview lecture on "Habaneras"
45 minutes before the show in Wharton Center's Stoddard Grand Tier Lounge. ©Copyright
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