Since we haven’t really blogged about ballet for a while, I thought I’d bring it back. When I was looking at the New York Times arts section, I saw an article entitled “A Cultural Leap Across a Political Divide” with a picture of dancers beneath it. It caught my interest since I could not think of how politics and dancers could be group together. The article is about a performance by a group of ballet dancers that are from City Ballet and American Ballet Theater in Havana, Cuba, as part of an international ballet festival. This article opened my eyes to the fact that the arts are not bounded by countries and wars (for the most part). Ballet is something that everyone could enjoy and appreciate, regardless of where they lived. The performance sounded like it was a fantastic show, and it is nice to see some things are not completely affect by the ugliness of wars and the complication of politics.
Click here for the article.
In the US, we take the arts for granted (well, we take everything for granted). It is sobering to contemplate the cultural life of the population in a repressed area like Cuba. The beautiful art, music and dance that they have produced (despite the harsh political climate and cultural isolation) is a testament to the tenacity of the human spirit.