College Dance Troupe Flexes Artistic Muscles in Cuba

Author: Alexandra Hay

I sit down once more in Artist-in-Residence Amy Chavasse's comfortable, small office to discuss how her adventure in Cuba turned out. It only takes a few questions to get Chavasse -- eager to share the amazing experience she and her dancers had in Cuba -- started.
Describing Cuba as a "land of incredible contrasts with amazing architecture crumbling down" and the "juxtaposition of beauty and poverty everywhere," her eyes light up as she thinks of the warm island. While "constantly reminded of the island's brutal history," enthusiastic artists welcomed the Dance Company of Middlebury to Cuba.
The Dance Company, along with members of the Dance Department, arrived in Havana on Friday, Jan. 31 and began a frantic schedule of performances, dance workshops and cultural exchanges. The dancers stayed in hotels designed for tourists and were almost always accompanied by an enthusiastic tour escort who facilitated the visit, taking the group to a Flamenco club one night, a Jazz club another and organizing lunches at "Paladars," a government-sponsored program that allows certain families to open their living rooms and serve lunches to guests for a fee.
The group's visit to the Yoruba Museum was a highlight of the trip, where they learned about the western African culture that was transported to Cuba with the slave trade and the integration of African deities -- called Orishas -- into the Roman Catholic pantheon of saints. But the museum is not just an educational institution: Chavasse describes it as "very sacred," with "people coming in and making offerings to the statues on display in little offering-pans for that purpose." The Yoruba museum also serves as a dance venue, where the group saw the Yoruba folkloric dance group perform. Chavasse, remembering the power of that performance, sits straight up in her chair and tries to convey the intensity of the dancers and the importance of facial expressions by imitating them, puffing up her cheeks and staring straight ahead. Of course, at the end of the performance the Yoruban dancers pulled the Middlebury dancers onstage to join them.
As well as informal workshops, the company performed their two pieces, "Death, Beauty, and Flying," and "The Fruit Axiom" at a joint performance with the Narciso Medina Dance Co. on Sunday night. Chavasse had previously expressed some worry about the level of technology at the theatre.
Although there was no dimmer board, lights, a soundboard and a small backstage area were available.
Julia Basso, a member of the company, comments that it was "wonderful to see a group of people that had so little in terms of money and materials, but had so much in terms of passion and love for life and the arts."
The audience, while appreciative and attentive, did not seem fully engaged by the unfamiliar style of dance.
The reception was more enthusiastic when the group performed at the Casa de ARTEX in Trinidad. There, they performed outside in a tiled courtyard surrounded by palm trees with the ocean in the distance.
The haunting movements of Chavasse's choreography moved the audience, who lightly rubbed their forearms to indicate their goosebumps.
Communicating was not a problem during the workshops, for the "movement transcended language," as company member Sean Hoskins relates.
But during meals and free time, Hoskins found the language barrier to be one of "the most frustrating aspects of the trip." Only two of the Middlebury dancers spoke Spanish, and few of the Cuban dancers spoke English.
Hoskins was especially impressed with the dedication of the Cuban dancers, who train from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. five days a week.
Company member Sara Stranovsky was also amazed to learn that Cuban dancers have to choose "at 10 or 11 years old that they want to dance, and begin intense, rigorous training immediately."
The cultural exchange finished with a farewell performance by the Narciso Medina Dance Company that was full of "raw emotional power," and left Chavasse feeling like she was "watching a birth or a death."
The passion and immediacy of the Cuban company provided a stimulating contrast to the more abstract style of the Middlebury Dance Company.
Chavasse hopes to bring the Cuban dancers here to Middlebury College when they come to the United States to perform at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City in May.