My Memories of Alicia Before Alonso

Alicia has died. I walked around my apartment feeling her spirit, but knowing something had changed utterly. My father, the late conductor Benjamin Steinberg, was the first music director of the Ballet de Cuba, as it was called then. I grew up in Vedado on la Calle 1ra y doce in a building called Vista […]

Remembering Alicia Alonso, Cuba's Prima Ballerina Assoluta

Her Dying Swan was as fragile as her Juliet was rebellious; her Odile, scheming, her Swanilda, insouciant. Her Belle was joyous, and her Carmen, both brooding and full-blooded. But there was one role in particular that prompted dance critic Arnold Haskell to ask, “How do you interpret Giselle when you are Giselle?” At eight, Alicia […]

97 Year Old Alicia Alonso Brings Her Ballet Nacional de Cuba to the U.S.

On the occasion of its 70th anniversary, the Ballet Nacional de Cuba tours the U.S. this spring with the resolute Cuban prima ballerina assoluta Alicia Alonso a the helm. Named a National Hero of Labor in Cuba, Alonso, 97, has weathered strained international relations and devastating fiscal challenges to have BNC emerge as a world-class […]