FESTIVAL FEATURES | Balletronic
VIVA LA
REVOLUCIÓN
Lucy Ribchester feels the heat in Havana, as Ballet Revolución’s new Fringe show
takes shape
‘T his is Bikram ballet,’ choreographer Aaron Cash laughs. We’re on the second l oor of the Television Ballet building in downtown Havana, here to watch one of Ballet Revolución’s daily technique classes, and it is sweltering. Rivulets of human steam are dripping down the turquoise walls, the ceiling fans are static; even Cash – an Australian – has nicknamed the room ‘the sweat box’.
And yet, despite an atmosphere that could wilt a cactus, the dancers are slicing the air with crisp turns and neat fouettés, immaculately keeping formation to ballet mistress Isis Schery Ramirez’s instructions. As they switch and swap groupings, Cash points out various members of the company. Some of the women are en pointe, such as ballerina Barbara Patterson Sánchez. But here also is Lianett Rodriguez Gonzalez, a contemporary dancer and trained gymnast; there is Yasset Roldan Garciarena, classically trained but also a masterful body popper. It might be the ballet stars that are shining in this particular class but the tables will turn another day when it’s time for contemporary, hip
14 THE LIST FESTIVAL 13–20 Aug 2015
hop or folkloric practice. The company – whose previous show, simply titled Ballet Revolución, toured globally – prides itself on recruiting dancers from a variety of disciplines; not only to showcase different talents but to stretch every dancer’s movement vocabulary. All the cast must take classes in everything, including tai chi and yoga, keeping them – apologies – on their toes. It’s this fusion of styles combined with Cuban classical discipline that the company is hoping will set audiences alight when it brings new show Balletronic to the Pleasance in Edinburgh this Fringe.
‘In Balletronic you learn from everybody in the company,’ says Patterson Sánchez. ‘Every day you learn something new and that’s a challenge for us.’ Classically trained at Havana’s Escuela Nacional de Ballet (part of the Escuela Nacional de Arte or ENA), Sánchez completed a two-year stint in the Ballet Nacional de Cuba before hearing about auditions for Ballet Revolución. ‘Whether classical or contemporary, everyone has their own style of movement. In this show I have to dance contemporary and neo-classical – different to what I’m used to.’ Classical fusion may not seem like a revolutionary idea to some audiences, but in Cuba, Sánchez asserts it is not par for the course. Here tradition rules and the training is i erce. Children as young as eight who show prodigious promise are plucked from the provinces to come to the prestigious ENA and take one of two routes; either contemporary or classical. Those taking the latter path may hope to end up in Cuba’s