Photographers in Ballet Shoes

Two events of special importance mark the cultural events of these days in the Cuban capital: the twenty-sixth edition of the Alicia Alonso International Ballet Festival -which also pays homage to the seventieth anniversary of the crest creation of the outstanding dancer: The National Ballet of Cuba-, and Photographic November, a meeting that has been consolidated as a platform for the development and promotion of this artistic manifestation on the Island.

Both events are united in the collective exhibition Divertissement, inaugurated in the Collage Habana gallery - San Rafael number 103 between Consulado and Industria, Centro Habana -, belonging to the Cuban Fund of Cultural Assets, under the direction of Pedro Edgar Rizo Peña, curator of Deydri Delgado Ávila, montage by Carlos Montané Collado and design by Fernando Riveaux Terrero.

Divertissement - Deydri explains in his words for the catalog - although it is inaugurated within the temporary framework of the XXVI International Ballet Festival, it intends to distance itself from the perspective usually presented by dance exhibitions. The intersections between both manifestations are emphasized in the exhibitions that are organized within the framework of the ballet festivals, or others in which the portraits of figures related to this world or relevant choreographic pieces predominate ».

The show includes works by Lidzie Alvisa (Professional), Arien Chang (Untitled), Adonis Flores (Lima), Glenda León (360 fouettés), Cirenaica Moreira (Untitled, from the series With the instep upside down), René Peña (Tutú), Grethell Rasúa (Having yourself, so full of faith and hope), Lázaro Saavedra (The Albino Raven) and Leysis Quesada (Mia and Avril dancers and Blackout).

«Plural signatures - continues Dreydi -lead to various approaches and perspectives. Some photographs opt for a more intimate or lyrical approach, sometimes given by a personal link with the ballet. In this case the speech is permeated by the experiences of the photographer. These images communicate with others in which the approach is more abrupt, sharp, provocative or ironic. Likewise, works in which the spontaneity of a gesture captured by the lens prevails, coexist with others that show scenes constructed for the camera, or with others that are based on the manipulation of archive images.

»Inevitable results that human issues come to light: the physical and spiritual violence of professional development, discrimination, the dissolution of the" I "in the whole, among others that the spectator will have to glimpse. They are latent throughout the sample universal dichotomous pairs: perfection and pain, talent and sacrifice, technical effect and careful dramaturgy, show and hidden reality, protagonism and choir ... ».

»In Divertissement -concludes-, dance gives way to individual poetics that allows them a diversity of approaches that overflow, to accommodate readings that go beyond the universe of the art of the body in motion».