Cuba celebrates its National Day of Culture 2023 with a special dedication to the National Ballet, the nation’s cultural heritage, which is celebrating the 75^th anniversary of its creation.

Thanks to the efforts of Alicia, Fernando and Alberto Alonso, who dreamed of an authentically Cuban expression of ballet, the Caribbean nation is proud to boast an internationally recognised company and a Cuban ballet school developed from the creative talent of its people.

This October, our Ballet, currently under the direction of prima ballerina Viengsay Valdés, celebrates its 75th anniversary. The National Theatre of Cuba is hosting a beautiful and varied season with exhibitions, tributes to its members, educational talks, book presentations and a film series, among other things.

Dr. Miguel Cabrera

We share with you the importance of the National Ballet of Cuba (BNC) through the words of Dr Miguel Cabrera, the historian of this prestigious cultural institution, who highlighted the relevant aspects in a press conference:

«We are celebrating the 75^th anniversary of a company that was born on Thursday, 28 October 1948, as a chimera, as a dream of three visionaries who believed in the future. All three of them already had professional careers and wanted the Cuban people to understand, on a mass level, that there was enough talent in the Cuban people to develop a ballet company.»

The Director of the BNC’s Documentation and Historical Research Centre explained the choreographic, pedagogical and cultural work that has been carried out since the BNC’s foundation, which he described as having three main objectives.

The choreographic work for the enrichment of the national culture of the Cuban people». Thus, 784 works have been created by 212 international choreographers from 29 countries, demonstrating the diversity and versatility of the BNC’s repertoire; and as part of the choreographic culture, to add plastic artists, theatre artists and composers, more than 400 composers have enriched the BNC, including 85 Cubans.»

Dr Miguel Cabrera, also a professor at Cuba’s University of the Arts, stressed that in the field of pedagogy, the Alicia Alonso Ballet Academy was created in 1950 to train the first generation of Cuban dancers. «Without this school, there would be no Mirta Plá, Aurora Boch, the Saá sisters, Joaquín Banegas, Menia Martínez, who in turn became teachers of new generations of dancers, and so on until today.»

A massive dissemination work has been carried out alongside the choreographic and pedagogical objectives. «I have had the honour of accompanying the company, Alicia and all the characters that followed, taking the Cuban Ballet to 105 cities in Cuba, from Mantua to Maisí, and on 216 tours in 62 countries,» says Cabrera, who recently celebrated 55 years at the side of Cuba’s most important dance group.

Translated by Luis E. Amador Dominguez