Cubans dance amid poverty.

HAVANA--As a guest choreographer creating a piece for Ballet Nacional de Cuba (BNC) during the fourteenth Festival Internacional de Ballet de La Habana (October 28-November 6, 1994), I experienced the great contradictions that pervade the life of that company. Directed by prima ballerina Alicia Alonso, BNC exhibits a startling combination of abundance and scarcity; talent and technical prowess flourish amid material deprivation and despair. In a company where double fouettes and consecutive tours en l'air are commonplace, such banal items as vitamins, aspirin, and Band-Aids are considered luxuries. Making a local phone call can take hours, sometimes days.

Conditions in Cuba are much worse since the collapse of the Soviet Union, which supplied the island with necessities from gasoline to pointe shoes. The loss of Soviet subsidy, combined with a tightened U.S. embargo, has pushed Cuba into an economic crisis. This so-called Special Period manifests itself with cutbacks in gasoline, electricity, water, and food.

There is no chlorine in the water, and those who don't bring bottled water from home risk contracting parasites, for which medicine is scarce. Although the company has a resident massage therapist and orthopedist--medical care is excellent and free in Cuba--simple items such as Ace bandages are unavailable.

Pointe shoes are manufactured by the company's shoemakers, but the materials are so bad that while on tour dancers often spend their per diem on shoes. Rehearsals are interrupted by power shortages, part of the ubiquitous Special Period.

Although Cuba is a tropical paradise for tourists with money, Cubans themselves have trouble finding fruit and vegetables. This situation has begun to improve since the October 1994 legalization of farmers' markets, a small but significant step toward freeing the economy. But when a dancer finally gets home after a hellish commute it is often to find that there is no gas, water, or electricity with which to cook.

In mounting a production, not to mention a festival, many basic needs fall through the cracks. Materials for costumes and sets are virtually unavailable, a problem that BNC's designers strive to overcome with creativity and dedication. Photographic paper and film are scarce; and video equipment goes unused for want of cables, cassettes, and repairs. The phones stop working every time it rains, so production details must be handled in person, a challenge in a city where transportation equals hitching a ride on the back of a bicycle.

Thus, it is all the more impressive that BNC and the Gran Teatro de La Habana were able to host an international festival. Dancers, choreographers, journalists, designers, modern and ballet companies from Italy, Spain, Russia, Great Britain, Austria, Venezuela, Brazil, and the U.S. filled four Havana theaters for ten days.

Among the companies that participated in the festival were Britain's Union Dance; Ballet Contemporaneo de Caracas; Novosibirsk Ballet; Dance Theater of Turin; Anajnu Veatem--Jewish Dance of Mexico; and, from Spain, Ballet de Zaragoza and several modern companies. The festival featured an array of international stars, including Ilze Liepa, of Bolshoi Ballet; Grazia Galante, a former dancer with Maurice Bejart's Ballet of the Twentieth Century; Benito Marcelino of Stuttgart Ballet, who partnered Sara Nieto of Ballet de Santiago, Chile; and Cuban Jose Manuel Carreno, currently under contract with Britain's Royal Ballet.

Many excellent Cuban dancers are waiting to burst onto the international stage. These include Lorna Feijoo, Carlos Acosta, Jr. (now dancing with Houston Ballet), and Rafael Rivero.

BNC presented three premieres: the raucous men's piece Desahogo Barroco, by Cuban Alberto Mendez; Tiempos de Amor by Cuba's Ivan Tenorio, and my own After Pandora, a contemporary sextet to music by Joel Diamond. In addition, the company offered local premieres of Celebrations, by American dance legend Yuriko; And Now the Wind Carries Your Words..., by Spaniard Pablo Molero; August Bournonville's La Sylphide, mounted by Clotilde Peon; and Cleopatra Eterna, created for Alonso by Ivan Monreal.

The success of BNC owes as much to Cuban tradition as to Alonso's popularity. From salsa to Afro-Caribbean ritual to Don Quixote, Cuba is a dancing culture. Ballet and modern dance are shown on television, and the Havana Festival is always sold out weeks in advance.

Working in Cuba is not for the faint-hearted. It is physically difficult and uncomfortable, and at times maddeningly frustrating. But Cuban culture is fascinating, its music enchanting, and its dancers exceptional. Politically and economically it is changing daily. Cuba is a mass of contradictions, filled with talent, creativity, and the kind of artistic insistence that drives a people who are desperate for change.