01 May 2024

Cuba

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A tousling of hair, a shimmy of thigh… Footloose in Havana

Joanna Tweedy is swept away by the passion of Cuba and its dance crazy capital

Cuba - A motor museum outside El Capitolio

1 A motor museum outside El Capitolio 2 The passion of the dance 3 The sea wall attracts the locals

CUBANS LEARN TO WALK and then they learn to dance,’ British director Stephen Rayne whispers as we sidle into the theatre mid-rehearsal. On stage, members of Havana-based dance company Ballet Rakatan are working on Manicero, a street scene about the city’s peanut-sellers.

At the end, my lone applause rings hollow around Teatro Municipal, a run-down, draughty venue that, like much of the capital’s architecture, has seen better days.

I’ve flown to Havana to watch Stephen and Cuban choreographer Nilda Guerra put the finishing touches to Havana Rakatan, a high octane show that later enjoyed a highly successful month’s run at London’s Peacock Theatre as part of the Sadler’s Wells season.

It’s a tough remit. The show strives to explain the history of Cuban dance in a two-hour nutshell, no mean feat considering the ‘Sugar Island’ has been dancing since the 15th Century.

Nilda, who founded Ballet Rakatan (‘rakatan’ means beating drum) in 2001 after a year teaching salsa in London, has managed to get her loose-limbed company to master flamenco, African tribal, folk, contemporary and partnered routines from the Forties. Underpinning it all is ‘son’, Cuba’s dominating musical rhythm.

Cuba’s charm is the people

Two members of Turquino, the show’s live band, aresummoned to explain son to me. ‘Tic, tic, tic – you hear the rhythm?’ Nilda asks. I do, but if any audiences find themselves lost, they should simply look for romance in a scene.

‘We often rely on the idea that a man, especially in the early 20th century, used dance as a way of getting closer to a woman, which explains how we got to dancing in couples,’ says Nilda. Even in this pared-down setting, the on-stage sexual posturing – a tousling of hair, shimmy of the thigh, grinding of the hips – is beguiling to watch.

Without the sheen of make-up or the dazzle of sequins, the raw talent – the dancers are all graduates of Havana’s demanding Escuela Nacional de Arte – still shines. Stephen, employed by Sadler’s Wells to thread a narrative through the show, confesses Havana has got under his skin.

He could earn more elsewhere but admits he’s looking at new projects with Nilda. ‘Cuba’s charm is the people. They have a joie de vivre that is unimaginable. And they express their lust for life through dance.’

Perched on the north coast of western Cuba, facing Florida and a US trade embargo that has lasted five decades, you couldn’t make Havana up. In its tumultuous 500-year history, the largest city in the Caribbean has been a stomping ground for everyone from buccaneers to the mafia.

Havana is a culture-soaked capital

Fidel Castro, Cuba’s fading revolutionary, who has now ceded power to his brother Raul, embraced tourism only when the Soviet Union fell in the Nineties. Even without US tourists, the island has emerged as one of the most popular holiday destinations.

More than two million fly in to experience Cuba’s twin-centre charm every year, combining a weekend marvelling at the faded elegance of Old Havana with an allinclusive break on the coast, where satiny beaches abound.

As a first-time visitor, I found the city surprisingly easy to digest. Neatly diced up into four areas, there’s Unesco-protected Old Havana, Centro Havana, upmarket Miramar, and Vedado, home to some of the biggest tourist hotels. Skirting much of it is the Malecón, the city’s sea wall. More than just a buffer for crashing waves, it’s a catwalk where everyone from wide-eyed tourists to joggers, musicians, fishermen and those peanut-sellers can be found.

The culture-soaked capital gives a snapshot of what a Caribbean city looked like in the early 20th century, with courtyards, grandiose buildings, brightly painted colonial architecture and perfectly preserved squares.

I found a potted history of sorts by sitting on the steps of former government seat El Capitolio (strikingly similar to America’s Capitol building) and watching the traffic. Curvy, colourful Buicks, Cadillacs and Fords – some pristine, others a splutter away from the great scrapyard in the sky – growled alongside Russian Ladas.

You see salsa performed on the streets

Plenty of other American ghosts haunt Havana. Ernest Hemingway’s room at hotel Ambos Mundos, his home for ten years, and El Floridita, his favourite bar, attract a stream of visitors.

Back at Teatro Municipal, the dancers break and head for chocolate and cigarettes. Nilda admits that being successful is a battle: ‘The hours are long and there’s a lot of stress. You find yourself spending more time with the company than with your boyfriend.’ Like tango in Argentina and flamenco in Andalucia, it isn’t uncommon to see salsa, rumba or mambo performed on the streets, but there are plenty of nightspots offering vibrant cabaret shows.

Casa de la Musica in Centro Havana regularly hosts some of the country’s finest salsa musicians, and in Miramar, open-air Tropicana rivals Vegas for scantily clad showgirls.

On my final night in Havana, I join a few of the UK-bound dancers to watch Ballet Rakatan’s youngest members perform at a Vedado hotel. As the production reaches a crescendo, I turn to ask what they made of their young colleagues.

They’re not there. Even after weeks of gruelling rehearsals and a show opening imminently, they’re on stage again of their own free will, dancing just for fun.

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