With an emotional act held this Monday at the Juan Abrantes Stadium of the University of Havana, the National Ballet of Cuba (BNC) commemorated the solid commitment that unites the company with the University Student Federation (FEU), on the 69th anniversary of the act of redress that the organisation dedicated to the Prima Ballerina Assoluta Alicia Alonso and to the then Ballet of Cuba.

As a note sent to the Cuban News Agency by the prestigious dance institution recalls, on 15th September 1956, Alicia danced “The Dying Swan” and announced her decision not to perform on stage in Cuba again while the regime of Fulgencio Batista remained.

After 69 years, faithful to the tradition and the homage to its history, the BNC, led by its general director and prima ballerina, Viengsay Valdés, attended the meeting with the university students to celebrate what Alicia Alonso defined as “a happy marriage” between the company and the FEU, just as the Historian, Doctor Miguel Cabrera, recalled.

The commemorative act was also a timely moment to evoke, furthermore, the figure of Fructuoso Rodríguez, the student leader who in that year 1956 was presiding over the FEU on an interim basis, and acted in favour of the organisation’s support for the young classical ballet company.

Thalía Morell García, member of the National Secretariat of the organisation, recalled the circumstances in which that act of redress was celebrated, and the validity of the shared values between both entities. “We are united by the permanent battle in defence of Cuban culture,” synthesised the young student.

For his part, Cabrera recalled part of these more than six decades of strong linkage, as well as the symbolism of a bouquet of red roses that the student organisation delivered for the last time to Alicia Alonso in 2019 and now does so into the hands of the prima ballerina Viengsay Valdés, a show of the indestructible ties that unite the vigour of the Cuban student body with the strength and determination of the Cuban ballet.

A stimulating moment of the commemoration was protagonised by the students of the “Fernando Alonso” National Ballet School, Joan Manuel Riera and Greisell Lastre, recently deserving of the gold medal in the classical pas de deux category at the XII International Competition of South Africa; who on this occasion, performed the piece “Tacto”.