By Sarah Kaufman. Washington Post Staff Writer. Thursday, August 3, 2000; Page C05
The Washington Ballet will perform in Cuba in October, becoming the first U.S. ballet troupe to perform at the International Ballet Festival in Havana, the company has announced.
In its week-long visit Oct. 23-29, the company will follow in the footsteps of the Baltimore Orioles and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, which both visited Cuba last year in an effort to increase contact between the two countries.
Since the 1960s, the United States has had a trade embargo against Fidel Castro's Communist government and has restricted travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens. But cultural exchanges have become more prevalent in recent years.
"We feel like we're at the beginning of this crack in the wall, in terms of the political situation in Cuba," said Washington Ballet Executive Director Martin Cohen, who added that he sees the trip as "a dialogue between exceptional artists."
An entourage of more than 100 dancers, teachers, arts patrons and students will travel to Cuba. The company will perform mixed repertory on three nights at the festival, and dancers will attend classes at the Ballet Nacional de Cuba, which hosts the festival. In addition, representatives of
several dance presenters, including the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in Massachusetts and the planned University of Maryland performing-arts complex, will accompany the troupe.
Cohen added that the tour is aimed at both raising the Washington Ballet's profile and strengthening the dancers by exposing them to another culture, another stage and other artists.
The trip is part of a wide-ranging Cuban initiative planned by Washington Ballet Artistic Director Septime Webre, whose personal interests in the visit run at least as deep as his professional ones. Webre's mother was Cuban, and his older siblings were born on the island. The family left just
after the 1959 revolution in which Castro seized power, and settled in Texas, where Webre grew up.
Webre traveled to Cuba for the first time last October, where he met Alicia Alonso, the legendary ballerina who is artistic director of the Ballet Nacional de Cuba. It was then that Alonso invited the Washington Ballet to the Havana festival.
"It's certainly a sort of homecoming," Webre said yesterday. "I grew up with so many secondhand stories and knowledge of Cuban culture, but not having been there until this year, it's all been quite remarkable and special."
Alonso's ties to the Washington Ballet date back to the 1950s, when she and her partner Igor Youskevitch danced as guest artists with the company. Alonso was also on the jury that awarded Washington Ballet dancer Amanda McKerrow a gold medal at the Moscow International Ballet Competition in
1981. McKerrow and her husband, John Gardner, who are guest artists of the Washington Ballet, will accompany the troupe on the tour.
As part of his Cuban project, Webre says, he hopes to commission a Cuban choreographer to create a work for the Washington Ballet, as well as raise funds for a video library of American dance in Havana.
The Washington Ballet was one of the first U.S. dance companies to tour Communist China, in 1985. The company visited Russia in 1990.
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