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IT'S THE THIRD WEEK IN JULY and Havana is hot and humid. All along the Malecon. the city's lengthy seafront which acts as its promenade and open air night-club. preparations are underway for the annual carnival which starts in a week’s time. Shaky temporary bars and shakier public toilets are setting up. Every day there‘s more activity and the streetlife lasts later into the night. This part of the city is in a state of anticipation.

But it’s in a state of tension too: this can be a difficult season in Cuba when times are hard. It‘s when the tides are best for the dangerous and illegal journey across the Florida Straits and the route of many who leave can begin right here on this coastline. This year. with the resolution of the Elian situation. things seem relatively calm.

To a visitor like myself. strolling along the Malecon. carnival represents the glittering surface of Cuban culture. a surface we know from its world-famous music and dance. but as British theatre director Toby Gough is discovering the Caribbean Island has many layers. ‘We start with a series of clichesf he says of his new production Lad-v Salsa. ‘but show that they come from something authentic and powerful. The journey that Cuba has been

through is immensely passionate.‘

Lady Salsa tells the story of Burns. a young Scottish photographer. who through his fascination with a mysterious woman. delves deeper into the country he visits. He discovers that alongside Cuba's Hispanic heritage. the music and religion of its Afro-Cuban people provide a very real link with their history: brought from West Africa as slaves to work the sugar plantations. He finds Che Guevara is not just a face on a student T- shirt. but the personification of self—determination in a small country that stood up to its giant neighbour. the United States. less than 100 miles away. And he discovers that for every dance or musical craze Cubans have brought to the dance floor. from son to salsa and chachacha. there’s a real story. And in a country where rap is now the new music on the streets. it's a complex inheritance.

Only minutes from the Malecon. the 30- year-old Gough. working under the guise of Teatro Chango de Cuba. is taking his cast of dancers and actors through rehearsals with Lucy Daniels his right-hand woman in this project. The director is a legendary element of the Edinburgh Festival with five Fringe Firsts to his name; he’s brought the city everything from an African treatment of Julius Caesar to

Mt: the spectre of American imperialism is never far away in Cuba;

dancers with Toby

Gough's company go

through their paces;

14 THE “ST FESTIVAL GUIDE 3—10 Aug 2000

choreographer Alexander Varona of DanzAbierta (see over); Iyame Savon, one of the stars of Lady Salsa; and locals cool off as Havana gears up for

the carnival season.

pop star Dannii Minogue as Lady Macbeth. His shows. which veer from the brilliant to the chaotic. share spontaneity. a cheek and an energy that Gough himself embodies like a personal tornado. He works day and night during my visit and it seems that any late night conversation or observation can get whipped up into a script being generated like a twister. As one critic has written. ‘Toby Gough is all present tense'.

ln Havana he‘s trying to achieve the impossible: taking a cast from a whole range of companies and backgrounds he has three weeks to put together a collaborative show. And. because this is a Toby Gough production. there must be promenading. fun. music. dancing and a bit of laugh.

When we arrive. Gough’s laptop computer has come off worst in an encounter with a dodgy power supply so the script is a scrap of papers carried around in a plastic bag. He doesn‘t speak a word of Spanish. but having worked across the continents he's fluent in bodylanguage.

When rehearsals finish each day and the local aerobics class takes over the faded dance studio. Gough ploughs off to the grandest hotel in the city. to start typing things up. to e- mail home. and to develop the play. But after