Hotel Habana Show: traveling to Cuba without a passport

Oh, Cuba, how much joy and sensuality overflows your culture, your people! Maybe that's why, when one leaves the show Hotel Habana -which this week had its world premiere in Malaga-, the desire to buy a ticket and fly to the Island cannot be suppressed.

But tonight we have not brought our passports, so the trip ends where it started: in the tent installed in the Fairground Cortijo de Torres, a small island of 40 meters in diameter, in which we have submerged for almost three hours, after which we have been in Cuba without leaving Spain.

In Cuba today and also in those of the fifties, because Hotel Havana is also moving between temporary lines that allow understand better the origins of Cuban music and culture, the joy and sensuality of its people.

Something that the Havana company, of the National Circus of Cuba, and the Spanish producer of shows Letsgo have been able to portray very well. You can breathe Cuban air since you enter the venue, where there are dancers interacting with the public, until when, at the end of the show, the most daring ones get on stage to dance with them. Also in the corridors there are Cuban voices, people from Cuba controlling lights, access ...

Iñaki and Gorka Fernández, producers of LetsGo (creator of successful shows such as "The Hole" and "The Addams Family"), went to the island almost two years ago to look for talent for this new show, which has the Artistic direction by Chevi Muraday (National Dance Award), costume design and set design by Felype de Lima (Max Award 2015) and choreographic direction by Roclan González (choreographer of the Cuban Television Ballet and director of the company Ballet Revolution).

None have wanted to miss the premiere, so they are all in Malaga. We are very pleased to see Germán Muñoz, artistic director of the Havana Company, who recently received the Excelencias del Arte Award, from the Excelencias Group, for "his valuable contribution to the development of circus traditions in Cuba and the training and development of Havana Company, whose members are present in shows of the best circuses in the world ".

Finally, when the lights go out and the show begins, the circus, dance and music of the Caribbean island tell us the story of this old hotel, now in ruins and about to be demolished, that survives and will survive thanks to dreams and the memories of its inhabitants, who will try by all means to keep their home standing and their history intact.

"Havana is a city of contrasts," begins Serafin (the Spanish comedian and actor Manu Badenes), the only foreigner in the cast, who will act as a narrator and master of ceremony. The great Rita Valdés (Shiara Dolores Balart), once diva of the most famous cabaret in the Cuban capital, sweeps in front of the old building ... the street begins to fill with people like in a typical Havanan scene: street vendors, music busting the speakers ...

They are the almost forty musicians, dancers and acrobats of first category that today we will see debut; behind the scenes there are almost a hundred people working for everything to go well: sound, lighting, tramoya ... especially during the numbers of the acrobats, which require pinpoint accuracy and strict security measures.

Even so, during many of the 22 numbers of the show, it will be difficult for us to breathe and our hearts will not be still until the executions over the Russian bar, the acrobatic swings, the scale or the aerial mast finish. Even, there will be times when we dare not look, as when two girls suspended their hair (capillary force) and from a tremendous height, they turned on their own body.

The tent has capacity for 850 people, and despite being Thursday, it is almost full. In these three hours there will be several ovations, closed ovations of a public delivered that, politely, has turned off the mobiles and cameras (it is prohibited to record the function).

And it is that the assembly overflow joy, youth and an unquestionable authenticity. The soundtrack is original, in the purest Cuban style, and there is no shortage of boleros, son and rumba, or anthological songs like Qué sabes tú, Quizás, Piel Canela, La Engañadora, Dos Gardenias…the plot is supported, moreover, with live musicians: Gabriela Cherta (guitar) and Iván Sáez (saxophone).

Will the love between Capullo and Rita triumph? Will they be able to paralyze the demolition order given by the police? Will they get the money to recover the old Hotel Havana? Many will be the nostalgia and vicissitudes that the inhabitants of Havana will face in pursuit of their utopia but, working together, they will manage to make it a reality, and the night ends with the very choreographed lyrics of Sobreviviré (I Will survive, a la cubana) and with a message of hope: "We can all save our own Havana Hotel".

That's why, when the music stops and the lights go out, this couple of Cubans who represent Arte por Excelencias tonight at the premiere of the show in Malaga, cannot repress the desire to buy a ticket and return to the island. But we have left the passports at home ...

After three weeks in the capital of the Costa del Sol, Hotel Habana Show will go through Palma de Mallorca (June 26-July 14), Santa Cruz de Tenerife (August 9-25), Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (3-6) September 22) and Seville (October 4-27). Then it will rotate through countries like Germany, Japan or China.

Ticket sales at www.hotelhabanashow.com

Prices: from € 27

Photos: @yricardo