Word: cuba
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...roughly 500 detainees held at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, none is more notorious than Mohammad al-Qahtani, the so-called "20th hijacker." Only weeks before 9/11, he tried to enter the U.S. illegally in Orlando, Fla., while the plot's leader, Mohammad Atta, waited to pick him up in the airport parking lot. As the Pentagon has said, "Had al-Qahtani succeeded in entering the U.S., it is believed he would have been on United Airlines Flight 93, the only hijacked aircraft that had four hijackers instead of five [and the one that ended up crashing...
When Fidel Castro seized control of Cuba in 1959, who would have guessed that one of the items high on his agenda would be launching a national ballet company? Yet the idea fit right in with his revolutionary goal of bringing art to the masses. Castro asked Cuba's prima ballerina, Alicia Alonso, and her dancer husband Fernando how much they would need to make it happen. They said $100,000. Castro gave them $200,000. The investment has been paying off ever since...
...Lorna Feijóo, 31, Boston Ballet. Compared with her sister, she has a more lyrical, flowing style, flirting gracefully with the tempos and holding breathtaking balances en pointe in such roles as the dual leads in Swan Lake. Lorna was flourishing as a prima ballerina in Cuba's National Ballet but left anyway, along with her dancer husband Nelson Madrigal, now also a principal in Boston. That time Alonso acquiesced and gave the pair her blessing. "We need to go around the world," says Feijóo. "We need to work with different choreographers, different companies, to learn different styles, because...
...through a rigorous classical regimen. Spain boasts a fine school run by former Maurice Béjart dancer Víctor Ullate. Argentina has another, at the century-old Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. But the most celebrated and influential school in the Latin world is the one attached to Cuba's National Ballet, supported by Castro since 1959 and presided over by the indomitable Alonso...
...With Cuba's National Ballet and other Latin companies achieving such high quality, why do dancers keep leaving? For one thing, the companies stick mostly to traditional repertory, emphasizing the classic 19th century romantic ballets. Homegrown choreographers are in short supply, and leading international choreographers rarely visit. The dancers are understandably restless and eager to explore more varied and contemporary styles. For another, the U.S. and Europe are still the big leagues, offering more visible (and lucrative) careers and often a freer, more comfortable way of life than are available back home...