Alicia Alonso — the grande dame of Cuban ballet
HAVANA — Alicia Alonso, the revered ballerina and choreographer whose nearly 75year career made her an icon of artistic loyalty to Cuba’s socialist system, died Thursday at age 98.
Miguel Cabrera, an official at the National Ballet of Cuba founded by Alonso, said she died at a hospital in Havana.
As founder and director of the National Ballet of Cuba, Alonso personified the island’s arts program under Fidel Castro’s communist rule and kept viselike control over the troupe past her 90th birthday despite being nearly blind for decades.
In New York in the 1940s and ’50s, Alonso was one of the earliest members of the company that became the American Ballet Theatre, helping it develop into one of the more important ballet troupes in the U.S. She was recognized the world over for the stylized beauty of her choreography and was named prima ballerina assoluta, the rarely bestowed highest honor in dance.
The ballet company announced it would dedicate Thursday evening’s performance at Lincoln Center of the George Balanchine classic “Theme and Variations” to Alonso’s memory. Balanchine created the work for ABT and Alonso performed at its world premiere on Nov. 25, 1947, partnered with Igor Youskevitch.
Alonso’s “imprint on ABT as one of the early members of Ballet Theatre is immeasurable,” said Kevin McKenzie, the troupe’s artistic director. “Alicia’s grace, intelligence and courage will surely leave a lasting impact on our art form.”
Even after she turned 90, Alonso maintained a busy travel schedule, cutting an impressive figure at ballet openings and other cultural events with her regal bearing, dark sunglasses and scarfwrapped head always held high.
But Alonso also drew criticism for her longtime support of Castro’s government. Defecting dancers said they were stifled by extreme discipline, a lack of artistic freedom due to her nearstranglehold over Cuban ballet and the inability to travel freely abroad.
Born Alicia Ernestina de la Caridad del Cobre Martinez Hoya on Dec. 21, 1920, in Havana, Alonso began her dance studies in 1931.
“I grabbed the barre … and I found what I liked more than anything else in the world,” Alonso told The Associated Press in 2001.
At age 16, she moved to the United States, where she married s fellow Cuban dancer and choreographer, Fernando Alonso. During their 27year marriage, which ended in divorce, the couple had one daughter, Laura. She was Alicia Alonso’s only child.
During her early years in the U.S., Alonso continued her studies with wellknown ballet teachers such as Enrico Zanfretta and Alexandra Fedorova, both from the School of American Ballet in New York.
Alonso launched her professional career in 1938 on Broadway, where she performed in the musical comedies “Great Lady” and “Stars in Your Eyes.” The following year, she was part of the American Ballet Caravan, precursor of the New York City Ballet.
Alonso joined the prestigious American Ballet Theatre of New York in 1940 and remained with the company for 16 years.
Her career took off as she danced the lead roles as prima ballerina in romantic and classical performances throughout Europe and the Americas. During that time, she worked with some of the 20th century’s greatest choreographers, including George Balanchine, Mikhail Fokine and Bronislava Nijinska.
But she worried about the development of new dancers back home and in 1948 founded her own company in Havana, the Ballet Alicia Alonso. She opened an academy of the same name shortly thereafter.
During the rule of strongman Fulgencio Batista, Alonso issued a public letter in 1956 rejecting any government assistance for her dance school. She ultimately decided not to dance again in Cuba while Batista remained in power and traveled to the United States, where she worked for a time with the Greek Theater of Los Angeles.
Alonso returned home after the January 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution and changed the name of her academy to the National Ballet of Cuba, which received enthusiastic and enduring financial backing from Castro’s government.
She remained a fervent, lifelong supporter of the revolution, reportedly even joining other citydwelling Cubans for backbreaking sugarcane harvest campaigns ordered by Castro.
Meanwhile, her company toured Latin America, Europe and the United States, performing in 1978 at the Metropolitan Opera of New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington. . Offstage, she continued to devise choreography, plan tours and even design the company’s performance programs. Over the years Alonso’s schools churned out dancers who were in demand by companies worldwide, prized for their technical perfection.
But she also gained a reputation for micromanaging and for imposing total domination of Cuba’s dance world, just as Castro loomed over all things political. Detractors said artistic stagnation set in and the company was slow to pick up new trends, rigidly adhering to classical styles and the ballets that made her famous: “Giselle,” “Carmen,” “Swan Lake.”