AURORA BOSCH AND THE ART OF DRAWING STEPS

Aurora Bosch's legs mark six o'clock. In the language of ballet, that step is called "penché," and at 75 she still does it as a professional. My mind is struck with the image of this dancer in the coda of The Black Swan, when in an act of seduction she throws herself at Prince Siegfried, as though taking off, and he holds her in the air. Bosch caught everyone´s breath in that scene where she seemed to be ready to anything just to become a queen. That is why I do not believe her when she reveals to me that she was afraid when being lifted, although in the said scene "it is easy," in her opinion. No one who has seen her agrees with the artist in this detail and, without a doubt, she was a good actress: she convinced us all that she was brave and temperamental like the Myrtha, queen of the Willis, of the ballet Giselle, that earned her to become a legend and a referent - the Ana Pávlova Prize of the University of Dance and the Special Prize of Dance Critics and Writers of France at the IV International Dance Festival of Paris, in 1966. By the time she had won the gold medal at the Varna Contest, Bulgaria, she was not yet a prima ballerina. She obtained that category in 1967. Artistically, Aurora was born and developed under the aegis of the founders of today's National Ballet of Cuba (BNC): Alicia, Fernando (1914-2013) and Alberto Alonso (1917-2007). Fortunately for the current generations of artists, this master maintains the iron will that led her to the pinnacle of art in her country, to integrate an elite named by the great English critic Arnold Haskell as "the four jewels of Cuban ballet." Now, Bosch enlightens others with her wisdom. The professor suggests a different way of performing a movement and at once the artist becomes an angel. "Drawing the air," she suggests while marking a relevé lent. This is how she works, injecting sensations and inviting people to dance with music.