From Cork to Cuba: an Irish photographer in Havana’s palace of ballet

A young dancer rolls up her tracksuit to lace the delicate ribbons around her ankle as she prepares for the day’s dance class. Beside her a young man embraces a female dancer, kissing her on the lips as she cools down after a long session of pirouettes and balances. Another young woman sits in the doorway enjoying the light breeze as she watches her classmates move gracefully around the room.

These are the young Cuban dancers of the Centro de Promoción de la Danza ballet school and company – known as Pro Danza – situated in the suburb of Marianao on the outskirts of Havana.

The school was set up in the 1990s by Laura Alonso – daughter of prima ballerina assoluta Alicia Alonso – as an offshoot to Cuba’s national ballet school. It is based in an ageing Cuban mansion which, throughout its history, has housed a hospital, a factory and the former presidential summer residence. The dilapidated building’s musty smell and crumbling walls stand in stark contrast to the youth and vitality of the dancers who train at the school.

Alonso says she decided to set up the school as a place for dancers who didn’t make it into Cuba’s highly competitive national ballet school. “There were so many talented young people left outside the national ballet school, so I decided to do something to help them,” she says.

“We teach them the technical skills they need to master in order to become professional ballet dancers.”

In early January 2016 Irish photographer Michael Mac Sweeney travelled to Cuba to document the movement and training of Cuba’s young ballet dancers.

“I was in Cuba about 12 years ago and was planning on going back before the American influence became too prevalent,” says Mac Sweeney. “I was going through old photos of ballet, and one of the images I’d come back with before was from school. I did some research into it and found the Pro Danza ballet school and the connection with Alicia Alonso, who was an icon for the country.”

Alicia Alonso, the former director of the National Ballet of Cuba, achieved international recognition as a ballet dancer from the 1940s, despite partial blindness. She co-founded the Ballet Nacional de Cuba with her late husband, Fernando Alonso, who was also a Cuban ballet dancer and teacher.

Before leaving Ireland, Mac Sweeney contacted Alan Foley, artistic director of Cork City Ballet, who donated clothes and dancewear for the students at the Pro Danza school.

“The school is funded by voluntary donations,” says Mac Sweeney. It relies on financial contributions from abroad but is always in need of new pointe shoes and material to sew costumes for performances. “Some of the stuff the dancers wear is torn and fairly ragged, whereas the stuff that I brought over from Cork was in perfect condition. It was a gesture of goodwill that allowed me a proper introduction to the school.”

Mac Sweeney describes the building that houses the school as “an old palace” with plaster peeling off the walls.

“But it’s functional,” he adds. “They really have the most basic facilities, but there’s a brilliance within it.

“It’s completely faded grandeur. There’s a sweeping staircase through the centre and you could sense that at one stage it was glorious in its heyday. If it was in Ireland, it would be condemned.”

At first glance the young dancers rehearsing inside the building appear just like any other teenagers, busy texting, chatting and flirting. But as soon as they step into their ballet shoes and on to the polished dancefloor, they transform into elegant, graceful dancers.

“Once they’re in performance mode, they’re complete artists; the discipline is unbelievable,” says Mac Sweeney.

The photographer has tried to show this dedication and diligence in the images taken at the Pro Danza school.

“You’re trying to capture exactly what they’re trying to express,” he says. “There was no eye contact as such between the dancers, even though some of the performances were quite emotional. It was their bodies that were communicating, rather than their faces.”

“I like the silhouettes best,” he adds, referring to a series of images of a male and female duo dancing pirouettes in the late-afternoon sunshine. “The shapes are quite graphic. In some ways, when you can’t see the facial expressions the shadows accentuate the dancers’ form.”

Foley, who sent a suitcase of ballet shoes, leotards and tutus from Cork City Ballet to the young Cuban dancers, says many of this school’s “world-class dancers” are forced to wear secondhand, cast-off ballet shoes.

“Shoes are the holy grail of ballet,” he Foley. “Everything is done with your feet. Ballet is based on having beautiful feet: the landings from all the jumps, and beautiful feet up in the air.

“Pointe shoes for girls are really expensive; about €80 per pair. A ballerina would wear up to three pairs in one performance.”

Foley says Cubans are known internationally for their detailed technical dance skills and an ability to balance for what can seem like an eternity. “Cubans love their ballet. They’re renowned for their balance and their pirouettes,” he says. “They can balance for days.”

Arionel Vargas, a former principal dancer with the English National Ballet, who trained at the Pro Danza school, says its intense coaching, along with competitions and cultural exchanges, provides dancers with the tools needed to pursue a career in dance.

“It’s a strict school and very demanding technically,” Vargas says, on the phone from the US. “That’s how we learn to pirouette and do tricks. It’s like the Russian system, and has a great atmosphere.

“I worked with Ivan, Laura [Alonso]’s son, who is a great choreographer. He made me see dance in a different way. I always saw it in a classical way, but he made me an all-round better dancer.”

Vargas says Pro Danza gives aspiring ballet dancers the chance to dance in world-renowned ballets around Cuba, and sometimes abroad. "You get to dance roles you've never danced before," says Vargas, who danced Swan Lake with the company when he was 18 years old.

Asked why ballet plays such an important role in the lives of these young Cubans, Laura Alonso says dance is “like a pathway into the magical world of fairytales”.

“The ability to dance is, for me, just as important as being able to breathe. A child dances in the crib before he or she can even walk. It’s an ancient practice that is as old as humanity itself.”