Embracing song, music and dance, the National Ballet of Cuba invites

Under the direction of prima ballerina Vengsai Valdes, the company successfully showcased on April 15 a piece with a spiritual background: La Hora Novena, sponsored by British Friends of the prestigious dance troupe.

Although English choreographer Gemma Bond defends abstraction, many of the images in the work suggest a story of search, suffering, and pilgrimage, which culminates in a dramatic embrace as a happy ending, one that many couples long for.

Both dancers and singers of the Lyric National Theater and Rodrigo Prats Lyric Theatre, from the eastern province of Holguín; All religious souls indulged in the creation of German genius Johann Sebastian Bach from a religious text.

At the Avelaneda Auditorium at the National Theater, BNC proposed this weekend and will run on April 23-24, a musical program of works closer to contemporary style than the traditional classics that the company advocates; But it is demanding and striking.

With Symphony for Nine, American choreographer James Kelly set out to challenge the artistic level of so many dancers, even with a certain dynamism for each artist on stage.

The performers of this new season are young, and most of them have yet to learn to manage their energies to maintain the required speed and to execute masterfully and at precise musical times; But the dance symphony is in action once again for an audience that crave an adrenaline rush.

Although the show’s final image is a tender hug, there’s no better beginning than that intrigue, angst, search, and obsession; Which introduces choreographer Eli Regina Hernandez (first soloist from BNC) with La forma del rojo, to the erotic music of Italian Ezio Bosso.

The abstract work, open to endless readings, interacts with the range of sensations caused by color and enriched by the desires injected by the dancers, who manage to convey the intensity, strength and personalities so often associated with red.

The praise is due to the performance of the group in which artists of the stature of ballerina Annette Delgado coexist with a recent graduate of the school such as Luisa Marquez, with courage and professionalism.

Applause for the phenomenal contemporary dancer that is Daniela Gomez, so elongated, expressive, dramatic; It gives me great pleasure to appreciate how any piece reaches its fullness in his hands. She stands out for The Shape of Red and The Ninth Hour for the right reasons.

jha / msm