Contemporary dance devotees are in for a sensational treat – from a 50-year-old company from one of gth world’s poorest nations which has never toured here before
Last year British audiences at the Royal Festival Hall marvelled at the accomplishment and passion of the young musicians of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, and wondered why it couldn’t happen here.
This month audiences keen to admire high quality youthful performance have on offer a dance version, this time from Cuba, thanks to the determination and awareness of what is happening overseas of the Dance Consortium.
The members of Danza Contemporánea de Cuba are not in the early teenage years of Gustavo Dudamel’s Venezuelan musicians, dance demands more physical development. These artists are in their twenties, but have been dancing since they were tots as part of their elementary education. “It’s their chance to advance out of poverty” says Alistair Spalding, artistic director of Sadler’s Wells. “It’s like football here, an opportunity everyone can pick up on”.
Danza has been invited by the Dance Consortium, the co-operative of dance venues here that work together to showcase the best in new choreography and performance. Planning for his tour has been spearheaded by Spalding and by Assis Carreiro, the director of Dance East who last year opened a new international-standard dancer centre in Ipswich.
Danza has been described by The Guardian as “one of the world’s most exciting dance groups”, with its Cuban blend of modern American theatre, Afro-Caribbean dance and classical European ballet. “It’s about the whole dancer on the stage, the way they live the dance, their enthusiasm, their energy, the quality of movement” says Spalding. “It’s in their genes.”
Danza began more than 50 years ago when Ramiro Guerra, once a dancer with Martha Graham’s legendary company in New York, founded the Conjunto Nacional de Danza Moderna (National Modern Dance Group) and although the name was changed along the way, it remains essentially the same.
There are 60 dancers, all drawn from Cuba’s national art school – 21 of them are on the tour - and now under the direction of Miguel Iglesias, Danza imposes a gruelling training regime, and places a high premium on individual spontaneity and inventiveness. “The grammar of dance, the words of dance, is movement,” Iglesias explains, “but a choreography must have a central idea, an intention. We must provide a dancer with the intellectual means to turn all this sophisticated technique into the language of dance.
“Our approach always stays fresh. Each new member brings new experiences, feelings, intentions… They are young faces and bodies, some very young, but they are always extremely talented. Not all of them get to be stars, but we try to make sure everyone is playing the right role” Iglesias says.
Yet although Danza has toured the world, this is the first major tour the company has had to the UK, and the reason is simple, Spalding explains: “Really, it’s the rep”.
And although Danza has over 70 works in its repertoire, none are modern commissions so the dances tend to be traditional and static, in spite of the ingenuity of the dancers themselves. Cuba is a poor country, with a tiny annual budget al of which has to go on running the company. There is nothing left for commissions, an almost surreal situation for a contemporary dance group, particularly one with national status and an international reputation.
So the Dance Consortium has commissioned the Cuban George Cespedes, Danza’s principal choreographer, to create a new piece, and although it is based on the Cuban experience and on the traditional dance, the mamba, the music he has chosen comes from the progressive Cuban group Nacional Electronica, and it is called Mambo 3XXI. There are also new dances especially commissioned from international choreographers Mats Ek (Swedish), the UK-based Spanish Rafael Bonachela, and Jan Linkens (Dutch).
From February 23 Danza will tour to Newcastle Theatre Royal, the Brighton Dome and Sadler’s Wells in London.
