A Trio of Classic Proportions.

Three young ballerinas embody the heritage of Ballet Nacional de Cuba, now beginning its fifty-first year.

When Ballet Nacional de Cuba, directed by Alicia Alonso, returned to New York City last season after a nineteen-year hiatus, bold bravura dancing exploded on the stage of City Center. Of the many superb performers who brought wit and virtuosity to choreographer Pedro Consuegra's charming and naive Cinderella, three young ballerinas stood out: Lorna Feijoo, Alihaydee Carreno, and Viengsay Valdes. They are as different as their unusual names sound (Valdez's diplomat parents gave her a Laotian one), but they are united by a technical and stylistic consistency that defines the Cuban school. Russian endurance, American footwork, and French epaulement all find their way into a typical BNC class.

"Our way of dancing is unique," says Carreno. "When I danced Giselle in Chile, they asked me for a style that is much different from what we do in Cuba. They have their style and we have ours. The Cuban school has a stamp." One of the telltale signs of a Cuban-trained dancer is a dizzying ability to turn--one of Alonso's many attributes; Feijoo, Valdes, and Carreno put the Cuban stamp on all their turning sequences, making a series of thirty-two fouettes a game of doubles and triples.

While unified by training and tradition, each has her own approach to interpretation and her own artistry. Feijoo commands a spectacular technique, Valdes dances with disarming purity, and Carreno projects a touching vulnerability. To watch each dance the title role of Cinderella was to study the latitude a ballerina has in creating character out of choreography, and to marvel at the ability of each to bring new life to an old fairy tale.

Carreno was born into a family of dancers, the most famous being her cousin, Jose Manuel Carreno, now a principal at American Ballet Theatre. Her mother, Haydee, a soloist with BNC, combined her name with that of her husband, Ali, who now performs Spanish dance in Florida, to arrive at the exotic mix of Alihaydee.

"When I was born, Mama took me to the theater," says Carreno, taking a rare rest backstage at City Center. "I saw everything. I put on my mother's pointe shoes and did Black Swan in the house." When she was nine years old, she auditioned for the national ballet school. "They accepted me for the evening class, which isn't the top class, because I was heavy," says the now-petite twenty-four-year-old. "After one year they put me in daytime classes. I didn't have the right physical attributes, but with work I improved and went to the top class."

In Cuba ballet education is a serious business; dancers are highly respected by a well-informed audience. Many children audition for the state-supported school, but few are accepted. Those who get into the program undergo intensive training for eight years, studying ballet, modern, character dance, acting, pedagogy, methodology, music, and academics.

At fifteen, Carreno won first prize in pas de deux with her classmate and formerly frequent partner, Carlos Acosta, who now divides his time between Houston Ballet and Royal Ballet. Carreno went on to win, among other honors, first prize at Cuba's prestigious Union of Writers and Artists (UNEAC) competition in 1991, while Acosta took the Grand Prix. After two years in the BNC corps, Carreno was made soloist, and shortly thereafter prima ballerina. Her first principal role was in Don Quixote, followed by Swan Lake, Coppelia, Giselle, and Cinderella, in which she danced the world premiere in Cuba.

"When I prepare a role, the first thing I do is read the book or libretto. Interpretation isn't choreography; it's what you feel about the story. For example, when Giselle picks the flower, it signifies something; there's intention behind it," says Carreno. "I pick this flower to find out if you love me, not just because the choreography tells me to. It's technique with interpretation, transmitting all of it to the public."

Carreno has a light, joyous quality that lifts her Cinderella out of servitude. She fills the ballet's gestural moments with intention, clearly shifting from fantasy with an unseen partner to the reality of drudgery. Her Cinderella is funny in her frustration--scared but spunky. Her effortless turns don't spin but soar, and her batterie is light and clean. Her emphasis is on

flow, with a soft upper body, unconcerned with technical overkill. She makes the internal conflict of the character clear, using pristine mime and unabashed facial expression.

One night in New York City, the pas de deux with Osmay Molina was impeccable, filled with beautiful lifts, balances, coquetry, triple pique turns, and triumphant pauses in retire, done as always with Carreno's shy, enchanting smile. Three nights later, after a difficult descent from a tricky lift, she rebounded by adding an extra series of spectacular fouettes in a circle. She looked fragile for a microsecond, but recovered valiantly--a brilliant ballerina with such lyricism, delicacy, and femininity that she never fails to win hearts. "I need my coaches to orient me, to say, `Go on, do it!'" she exclaims. "That's always necessary, because no one is perfect, even when they're a prima ballerina."

In the 1970s all Cubans, young dancers included, were expected to form brigades and march into the fields to harvest sugarcane. Today, as Cuban ballet, music, and folklore are increasingly popular, culture is considered as important an export as sugar. While workers receive their salary, pension, health care, and education from the state, many important items are available only for dollars. These days it's especially hard to subsist on a Cuban salary. Dancers clamor to work abroad to earn hard currency to help support their families. While the bulk of BNC tours, dancers at home jump at any opportunity to work. Valdes, who joined the company in 1994, auditioned for a role in this writer's After Pandora, when the company left her behind on its annual tour to Madrid. She proved to be an unusually quick study with a dazzling stage presence.

Once in BNC, Valdes lost no time learning corps and soloist repertory. Her rapid rise was accompanied by such honors as the Gold Medal of the Vignale Dance Festival in Italy in 1993 and the UNEAC Grand Prix in 1994. Now twenty-one, she danced in every New York City performance. She alternated between Cinderella and the demisoloist role of Fanchon, Cinderella's stepsister. As Fanchon, Valdes was an engaging comic presence, primping, mugging, and cutting up in the ballet's cartoon style. As Cinderella, she was sweet and simple, lighting up the stage with her ingenious, dimpled smile. She had a direct approach that clearly showed Cinderella's dreams, disappointments, and surprise. Her variations were delicate and musical; she floated through movements instead of pausing to pose. In the pas de deux with Reyneris Reyes, she charmed the prince with a fetching, girl-next-door delivery. Valdes is not pyrotechnic, but clean and connected. When appropriate, she can pull out the stops, floating out of pirouettes into arabesque on pointe, balancing in passes battus, and calmly changing her spot in the circular series of fouettes that invariably brings down the house.

"I'm like a sponge," she says as she explores midtown Manhattan. "Choreographers and teachers are experienced. I try to absorb everything they tell me, and then dance with the dynamic or intention they describe." She continues thoughtfully, "I was surprised when they gave me Giselle. I was so young. The character and the softness of the second act were a big challenge. I was lucky people like Josefina Mendez prepared me well. She's marvelously demanding, very focused on details." Valdes takes a bite of her very first bagel and nods appreciatively. "We are young, but they give us opportunities."

With her crystalline technique, exquisite phrasing, high extensions, and beautiful feet, Feijoo, an exceptionally musical twenty-two-year-old, is poised to launch an international career. "In Cuba we dance to the music, but we don't count it," says Feijoo. "When people count, you can see that they're not enjoying what they're doing." For three months before BNC's City Center season, she danced with Zurich Opera Ballet, performing Giselle, Balanchine's Serenade, and new ballets by company director Heinz Spoerli. After enchanting critics and audiences in New York City and Havana, she hopes to dance Juliet soon in Zurich.

"My mother teaches ballet and is very picky; nothing is ever good enough," Feijoo says, over a salad at a restaurant on 57th Street. "I always danced Black Swan, but when I did my first full Swan Lake, even my mother approved." Indeed, Feijoo's debut as Odette-Odile was a triumph at the fourteenth International Festival of Havana in 1994, an appropriate follow-up to gold medals in Peru, Italy, and Japan. Her sister, Lorena, dances with Joffrey Ballet of Chicago. "She's one of my idols," says Feijoo, "along with Alicia [as all Cubans affectionately refer to Alonso], Mendez, Alicia Markova, and Cynthia Gregory."

As Cinderella, Feijoo had a polished quality that set her apart. Less vulnerable and innocent than the others, her Cinderella had hidden strength. She found the most virtuosic rendition of every step: dazzling turns, high and fast jumps, solid balances, and arabesque promenades that deepen into penchees. Her flawless technique was complemented by a seeming weightlessness and a melting upper-body softness. Her interpretation was complex. She invented stage business for herself and milked the gestural moments: flinging the cursed broom offstage, pulling her hand away from the prince teasingly, sheepishly sliding the glass slipper onto her foot.

Feijoo is constantly expanding her repertory and range. "I like dancing the classics the most, but I'd like to dance more modern ballets," she says decisively. "BNC needs more modern. Modern helps you move and gives more liberty to the body." Her dancing is athletic and deliberate; her large and small movements reach up to the balcony. With her long neck and sweeping bow in arabesque, she creates lines that seem to extend beyond her body. "You don't just do the steps," she says, "you have to dance them."

Valdes, Carreno, and Feijoo find their own ways to translate steps into dancing, choreography into character. They create distinct artistic atmospheres around themselves, eschewing competitive comparisons in favor of individual growth. Each has her own allure, her own philosophy, and her own loyal following at home. Alicia Alonso's legacy flows through these three ballerinas, and on to the next generation of artists to be formed by the Ballet Nacional de Cuba.

RELATED ARTICLE: Ballet Training in Cuba Today

The Ballet Nacional de Cuba celebrated its fiftieth anniversary last year, along with its sixteenth biennial International Ballet Festival. Ballerina assoluta Alicia Alonso founded BNC in Havana in 1948 with several fellow members of Ballet Theatre (now American Ballet Theatre) during a layoff period. Alonso had begun her studies in Havana with Nikolai Yavorsky and continued in New York City with Cecchetti teacher Enrico Zanfretti (where she mastered her quick, clean beats) and with Russian teachers, including Fedorova and Vilzak.

Josefina Mendez, former principal dancer with BNC and now one of its ballet mistresses, describes the structure of the company: "We have fifty dancers on tour and a total of sixty-eight, with persons who do other things backstage. Back in Havana we have another company that we split into groups for all our tours. Earlier we were booked by the Ministry of Culture, but now we do our own administration from the ballet office. Part of what we earn is kept by the company for new scenery, costumes, and whatever else is needed."

Mendez explained the source of the Cuban school's beautiful, flexible feet, solid balances, multiple turns, and impeccable beats: "We have learned a lot about the science of teaching. For instance, grands plies are given after the third or fourth exercise when the feet, back, ankles, and other parts of the body are warmed up. Grand plie is a full load, and the rising or descent from it should not involve cracking bones--those loud protests that come from an unprepared body. We continue to investigate all portions of the training the same way.

"Of course, this does not mean that everything changes or that the changes for aesthetic reasons are not based upon the skeleton and the safe use of the body. Style is something else. It must be correct to the ballet performed. Mastery of anything, such as balance, is a matter of placement and repetition. It is a science, not a secret. The dancer must learn that he or she is able to make corrections, should anything go off at some point. Of course, none of these `scientific' things must be given too much importance; they are part of the movement as a whole with dance itself as the goal. Dynamics, yes, are important, but not as a distortion or they become a trick for applause. It's all a question of good taste.

"We work very much on pirouettes because it is part of our Cuban style. We begin then at the barre in sur le cou-de-pied with arms in all positions. Center pirouettes are from Fourth Position with the back knee bent to give a balanced placement during the turn. In passe turns the placement is low and the impulse always up."

BNC's biggest lack: shoes. "Our materials are not very good," Mendez says, "and foreign shoes are very expensive. Sometimes I think that might be an advantage because we have to develop very strong feet as a result of that. On the other hand, it's sometimes a bit creel because the dancers use old shoes that don't fit or they exchange with each other if one has an important role and the other does not."

Marian Horosko

Freelance writer Suki John covers the performing arts from New York City and Havana. Her evening-length choreo-drama, Sh'ma, received its U.S. premiere last November at New York City's 92nd Street Y.