Cuban troupe offers fusion of styles
Cuban company fuses Latin music and dance with styles from around the world
From Africa to Cuba, from ballet to bolero, cha cha, conga, flamenco, mambo, salsa and tango, Lizt Alfonso covers the myriad styles that she has experienced over her lifelong immersion in music and dance.
“God set another path for me because I wanted to learn everything,” says Havana’s mistress of movement. “I have taken classes with people from India and Brazil because dance is so wonderful around the world. I want to learn, and in my mind and body, I want to share this with everybody, to put everything into one company and one choreography. That’s the fusion.”
Which helps to explain the show Cuba Vibra!, (or Cuba Vibrates), the Edmonton-area premiere performance of Lizt Alfonso Dance Cuba, happening at Sherwood Park’s Festival Place Sunday.
Alfonso’s award-winning company features 18 dancers ( just three men) and eight musicians in a mix of original, contemporary, classic and folkloric dance, with both original and classic Latin tunes. This international manifestation of LADC has now performed on five continents, at the White House, and on the Latin Grammy Awards. Her school in Havana hosts another 1,000-plus students.
At some two hours in length, Cuba Vibra! is much more than just a collection of dances.
“It tells a story about people who crossed the sea from Africa to Cuba and Haiti, and from Cuba to the United States, and also between Africa to Spain and Italy, to trace the history of these dances through war and migration and different generations. The music is especially good. It has a lot of variety and it’s very emotional.”
Alfonso’s love for dance started at the age of four when her parents took her to see the Nacional Ballet of Cuba. From her first ballet classes she was driven to pursue a college education in theatre arts, specializing in dance, picking up on folkloric, Hispanic and popular dance streams along the way. At 21 years of age, she won a two-year scholarship to study flamenco dance in Madrid, Spain, but that was just another set of steps to her own end goal.
“I didn’t want to imitate other kinds of dance. I wanted to do something different, something new,” says Alfonso. “That was very difficult. But I returned to Havana in 1993 to create the company we have today, and all the professional dancers we work with today are originally from our own school. We have a beautiful building there in old Havana with four rehearsal rooms, workshops and everything.”
Alfonso explains her busy schedule can veer dramatically from one extreme to another, depending on whether she’s at home focusing intensely on a new show, or touring the world for up to half the year at a time. She put away her dance shoes at 33, and today at 51 she’s devoted to creating new choreography and educating younger generations at home, or in workshops on tour. And her fascination for the music and dance of other cultures has never lessened.
“I remember when we were in New Zealand, we had contact with the Maori people and it was fantastic. Scenes like that touch you forever.”
After all these years, her message is simple yet profound, spoken from personal experience.
“The real mission is to help children to learn through dance that art can change your life. It’s a lot
i didn’t want to imitate other kinds of dance. i wanted to do something different, something new. that was very difficult.
of work, but it’s my life.”
LADC presents Cuba Vibra! at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday at Sherwood Park’s Festival Place. Tickets cost $40-$48 at the box office or online at festivalplace.ab.ca. Mexi-jazz Herrera style
The oldest stereotype of Mexican musicians is the mariachi band. If you’re into Latin jazz, those sounds typically spring from Afro-Cuban or Caribbean jazz streams.
Meet Esteban Herrera, a masterful jazz pianist from Mexico City who manages to defy both of those expectations with an approach that bridges the Afro-Hispanic roots of Latin music in Spain with a smart, contemporary taste for jazz improvisation. A resident of Calgary for over two years now, he makes his Edmonton debut leading a unique quartet in shades of Latin jazz at the Yardbird Friday.
After being given his first piano at age 11, Herrera fell in love with the keyboard and spent a few years learning on his own before enrolling in a conservatory for classical training at 16. But as chance would have it, there was a jazz workshop at school soon after, an event that radically changed his path.
“I was intrigued because even the name sounded exotic to me,” he recalls. “I left everything behind for jazz. It was fast and exciting, and the concept of improvisation is why I am a musician. I went on to study the classic jazz greats, (John) Coltrane, Bill Evans, Charlie Parker and those people, but I was always looking for my own language, my own music.”
Travels and tours have taken him back and forth, but a spell in Berlin in 2016 left a big impression after he was introduced to European approaches to jazz improvisation. Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock are some of his favourite influences, but Herrera clearly likes to explore with others. The pianist made six albums between 2012 and 2018, with the last Suenos a piano-drums duo album.
The Calgary quartet he brings here on Friday features Italian-born bassist Stefano Valdo and drummer Robbin Harris, plus the unique presence of Gisela Romero, a veteran mariachi singer who is exploring her own alternate avenues to that tradition, using both words and wordless songs, traditional compositions and original improvisations.
Herrera is very enthusiastic over his new-found musical friendships and is sorting out plans for three separate recordings, including a duo album with Romero.
“Now I’m 40 years old and I’m so happy because I don’t worry about what I do musically. I just do what I need to express and what I love to explain.”
Esteban Herrera’s quartet play at 8 p.m. Friday at the Yardbird Suite. Tickets cost $22 for members, $26 regular admission from Tix on the Square or the box office.