The show is world of smiles, vigor, overflowing joy, no one from outside can calculate it as a sacrifice, tumult of effort or storm or concentration camp, in which you survive or perish according to the limits of the body.
“We have to dance and dance every day, before a different audience in different countries, away from your family, friends, your partner, with the health problems that can happen to anyone. Almost always when someone is busy a show after another, and then you see him very sedentary, because not everyone holds that pace. Sometimes you do not know what day of the week it is, or what country you are, metabolism changes, especially in women, ” Lianett Rodriguez dancer at Ballet Revolution says, a project that was born as a spectacle and has been taking a company shape.
“Lia”-as everybody call her, were for three years a member of Danza Contemporanea de Cuba after graduating from the National School of Art in 2007. Her attraction to musicals led her to participate in the show Lady Salsa and the staging of two new at the time: King of salsa-which was mainly soloist and Ballet Revolución.
“With Revolution we start a two-month tour of Australia while rehearsing King of salsa because then we had to dance in America. We had in mind a lot of shows! In Australia the only woman in King of salsa was me and I had to rehearse all showmen, without women, “she says proud of the trust placed on her by the choreographer and artistic director Rocland Gonzalez.
But to stand that amount of work and styles, it is essential to have a broad base and solid technique, plus an extra body workout outside the scheduled rehearsals.
“The dancer needs excellent muscle training, in addition to natural talents, the desire to be and any professional learning. To start with the most important is muscle preparation for the body to adapt to high loads, in any style. Preparation alone does the dancer spectacular. I do not despise one that comes naturally but the dancer should have a daily workout. In my case I went from four years in rhythmic gymnastics, after I went through the ballet and over the years I decided to study dance, “according to the young restless artist whose ability to fuse street dance with classical elements was described as hypnotic by the Australian newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald.
According to the artist, the entertainment world has allowed her to learn and experience styles, explore the limits of her body and see new places on the planet. Also, she had to fly and dance in the same day, more than once had to spend the rest only time of the week to travel from one city to another, which means cutting hours of sleep to organize luggage. “That preparation comes into play, the more you prepare the body the more it can take. Also food and rest influence, is a balance that we must have constantly “she revealed.
This dancer dreads a month off, dry stop causes fatal consequences for the body. She does not allow it, and luckily years ago she found a support person in her daily training in Cuba. Lia went to see physiotherapist Miguel Capote Jr. with a sore hip at a time of much workload. “Since then I have never abandoned my ice, my paracetamol, my Ibuprofen, my stressing, my masseuse,” she says with a laugh and gestures of admiration and affection for the professional who today she counts among his friends.
“Actually, I found him very supportive of my career. The dancers live in a world apart and I’m oblivious to the pills, because many times we have so many hours of training that you discard the food consumed very fast. With Migue I have a connection that I hurt something and without having to specify where he realizes it and explains why. Thanks to his many years of experience with his father (renowned physiotherapist), he knows the body and how to train each of his patients. From his experience, he knows how to prepare a dancer and how to free you from injuries, operations and fatigue, ” she acknowledged.
The artist took to Capote not only as the person who would help her take the pain away but, above all, as a trainer, because both share the care of the body consciousness, crucial working tool for dancers.
When Ballet Revolución emerged in mid-2011, Lia attended the audition process as an assistant for choreographers. “I did not feel much like dancing but a member of the creative process. And when they began to stage the show I realized that I could do King of salsa and this at a time. I still feel part of the creative team until today, “she says while looking at the clock not to skip a rehearsal.
“Young and athletic Cuban dancers of Ballet Revolution through body movements have already displayed great eloquence in many parts of the world, the audiences enjoy their exuberant energy and joy of living with these dancers turn any idea into an explosive and intense performance, “Australian media expressed a year ago.
Ballet Revolución producers had the experience of Lady Salsa, King of Salsa and Bar of Buena Vista. Lia highlights the attempt to make a show with a futuristic vision, which show the dancer as such, “raw”, she emphasizes, without much stage production, or so many costumes, just to show the Cuban dancer.
The choreographers Aaron Cash, of Australia, and Rocland, of Cuba, wanted a fusion of ballet with contemporary dance and modern rhythms. The resulting product, labeled by the press as “a unique Cuban expression and greater virtuosity” received full applause in theaters in Australia, the German cities of Zurich, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin, London (UK) and Vienna (Austria), “where the audience is usually more classic and cool,” Lia warns.
Rehearsals to return to Europe in December 2013 began with some music and choreography changes but retain the same basis of the above, attests to the dancer. “Maybe a little more sophisticated because they are the same dancers in all the choreography and that will create enough muscle exhaustion. Add travel from one city to another and straightforward to function after two years choreographers have realized the need to rest a little here or there, maybe not as much an issue of dance and music. As time goes by the vision of the creators and the director evolves. “
Injuries, muscle exhaustion, all the mishaps along the way have helped to understand the usefulness of some changes. For Lia, the only non-negotiable element is versatility and Ballet Revolución is guaranteed by the styles of their choreographers. “Aaron Cash works a Neoclassical line and likes to stage contemporary on American music, themes of Chris Brown, Usher, Sandal, because he has that swing. Rocland works more on Cuban things; uses ballet techniques but with taste, the musicality of our Tropic Island “.
The tours of Ballet Revolución also gave Lia opportunities to take classes in London with Rambert, one of the most prestigious contemporary companies in the world, and the English National Ballet, led by Spanish Tamara Rojo and Cuban Loipa Araújo (associate Artistic Director).
“The good thing about these companies is that they work very gently, separating the muscles they really need, only and exclusively. You do not be so tense, so rigid to make a pass, a choreography. They show you how convenient to know which muscles are involved in moving and no work harder than necessary. For them needless aggression and make more is to waste “she summarizes, who has gone through different dance techniques and transited by Danza Contemporánea de Cuba and Cuban Television Ballet, in the latter as a soloist.
“My body needs that, the difference, the change, because sometimes you feel as stiff and you need to let it loose a little bit, with another class, some dance on the floor or body contact (one dance technique), some kind of action, music, even play, jump, run. The body adapts to the pace of life but there is a time when you need to know where to change it is not enough. If you pigeonhole into a single technique, when you do something where you do not remove it, because you have not lived it, not just see it, you have to feel it, give it, because the body is the only thing it will say if it is good or wrong. You have to feel if it gets into you, what brings you to a dance or to your daily life, because it does that, too, “the flirtatious young joker claims.
In her opinion, the complete artist is who spends a little about everything. “Obviously there are styles more akin to one, but the artist wishes to know and grow in the entertainment world should experience a bit of everything,” she says and adds she loves Jiri Kyllian, Wim Vandekeybus, Mats Ek, Ana Laguna and Rafael Bonachela.
Despite her admiration for great contemporary creators, practice taught Lia the essential technique in the preparation of any ballet dancer is, so she takes the time now to incorporate it. She also learned that she needed much more care of her body, not to neglect her diet and the benefits of constant ice on the muscles.
“The more tired you get it does not matter, you have to warm up enough, prepare well before dancing, and we have to dance Ballet Revolución with great technique, cleaning, with the rapidity of very modern music, luckily the costumes are not uncomfortable but we need to be concentrate, prepared “- she claimed.
The project brings together dancers with previous experience in the National Ballet of Cuba, Danza Contemporánea and the Ballet de la Televisión, among others. The show tells a story not defined, simply follow the structure of a musical. “Much dance, virtuosity, the musicians have a role in weight because the music is live. You know how that feeds you? Live there is so much going on, and energy also changes them that day, “the dancer recalls, eager for new scenarios.
Author
Martha Sánchez
