Alicia Alonso Takes the Stage Read online

  To the Rebel Girls of the world…

  Follow your own rhythm

  and the world will dance along.

  Alicia Alonso

  December 21, 1920-October 17, 2019

  Cuba

  CHAPTER ONE

  Alicia’s father strolled into the living room, settled into his favorite rocking chair, and loosened his tie. “Let’s begin, shall we? Ernestina, why don’t you go first? The rest of you can follow after your mother.”

  Alicia was excited. It was time for the family talent show!

  She loved this nightly tradition, how they gathered after dinner to perform for one another—everyone except Papá, who was always an audience member. They performed dances, songs, skits, comedy routines, and more. There was usually no rehearsing ahead of time.

  I will do a dance tonight, Alicia thought, nodding to herself. Of course, she almost always danced for the talent show. Dancing was her very favorite activity in the world.

  She had a few minutes to come up with a magnificent performance outfit. Last night, she’d worn her father’s black top hat and her mother’s gloves—one lace, one leather. Tonight, she would try a different look.

  She raced into the hallway, paused at the linen closet, and grabbed a bath towel, which could be draped over her short dark hair like a mantilla. And what about the silk curtains in the dining room? She could turn them into a swirly skirt to wear over her stiff taffeta dress…although Maria, the family’s maid, might not appreciate her using them for a costume again. Instead, Alicia grabbed a couple of white linen napkins that might be useful.

  Back in the living room, Mamá had taken her place next to Papá. She leafed through a thick volume of poetry, looking for the perfect poem to recite. Alicia plopped down on the velvet settee next to her sister, Blanca, and waited. Outside the window, the twilit sky bloomed pink and purple. In the distance, the lights of downtown Havana winked like stars. A warm breeze carried the smell of salt water from the nearby bay.

  Mamá pointed to a page in her poetry book. “This one!” she announced. She touched the emerald brooch at her throat and began reading in a slow, clear voice. It wasn’t a children’s poem, and Alicia, who was six, didn’t understand all the words. Still, she loved the way her mother recited the lines…sometimes quietly, and other times loudly and dramatically. Mamá was like an actress!

  Alicia’s teenage brothers, Antonio and Elizardo, went next. They took off their suit jackets, which Papá always made them wear at dinner, and rolled up their shirtsleeves. They sang a lively duet about sailors on the sea. When they finished, nine-year-old Blanca performed one of her famous humming numbers. Alicia’s sister was a genius at humming.

  Finally, it was Alicia’s turn. She took her position in front of the bookshelves. She fastened the bath towel over her neatly combed hair and let it cascade down her back. She clasped a white linen dinner napkin in each hand. Then she narrowed her large brown eyes in a mysterious way.

  “Music, please!” she said grandly.

  “Of course.” Mamá smiled and walked over to the record player. She chose something from a shelf full of records, set it on the turntable, and lowered the needle. The needle made a fuzzy, scratchy sound as it bounced on the disc. Then it settled, and a song began to play.

  Conga drums. Guitars. Violins. A bandoneon. Alicia recognized the song; it was by one of her mother’s favorite Cuban bands. She closed her eyes and let the music wash over her. Upbeat…downbeat…now!

  Her eyes flew open as she raised her arms in the air. She flapped the dinner napkins like furious little hummingbird wings. She stomped her feet on the tiled floor in time with the conga drums. She twirled on the wave of a mournful bandoneon note, and her bath-towel mantilla twirled along with her.

  She knew that her family was watching her, but she wasn’t watching them back. She was happily lost in her flapping and stomping and twirling. According to Mamá and Papá, she’d been doing this practically since she could walk—bursting into dance whenever she heard music and disappearing into her own world.

  At the moment, her world was the conga beat of the song and the swift, shimmering movements of her body.

  The violins came in, their melody swaying back and forth. Alicia swayed with them. The guitars joined in, thrumming rapidly like raindrops. Alicia thrummed with them. No one had taught her how to dance. The moves came naturally, from somewhere deep within her.

  When she was done, she curtsied.

  “Brava!” Mamá and Papá cried out.

  “Brava!” Blanca and Antonio and Elizardo joined in.

  “Muchas gracias!” Alicia replied.

  She curtsied again, holding on to her bath-towel mantilla to keep it from sliding awkwardly down her head. For a moment, she imagined that she was on a real stage, blinking into the spotlights as a whole auditorium full of people clapped and cheered.

  Maybe someday?

  CHAPTER TWO

  The following year, in 1928, Alicia’s family moved to Spain for ten months for her father’s work. He was a veterinarian who specialized in horses, and the government of Cuba had sent him to find some for the Cuban army. Spain was known for its fine horses that were a mix of Spanish, English, and Arab breeds.

  Alicia liked a lot of things about Spain—the lively crowds, the flamenco music drifting out of cafés, the markets selling colorful clothes and pretty combs. But she loved her weekly lesson at Señora Vega’s dance studio. Mamá had signed her and Blanca up to learn some traditional dances. That way, they could surprise their Spanish-born grandfather with a little recital when they moved back home in the spring.

  This week’s lesson was learning sevillanas.

  “One, two, three, four, five, six,” Señora Vega counted as Alicia and Blanca practiced the sevillanas steps. “Muy bueno, Alicia! Blanca, remember to begin lifting your arm on five and then finish lifting on six to correspond with your foot movements. Okay, let’s run through it again. This time with music!”

  “Sí, Señora Vega!” Alicia and Blanca replied.

  As Señora Vega cued the music on a record player, the sisters rushed back to the middle of the studio floor and assumed the sevillanas starting position: feet together, arms low and curved.

  “We look like we’re holding giant invisible pumpkins,” Blanca whispered to Alicia, giggling.

  Alicia grinned but didn’t reply. She was busy studying her reflection in the window.

  She wanted to make sure that her posture was straight, the way Señora Vega had shown them, and that her head was angled just so, with her chin lifted proudly.

  “What are you, the queen of the pumpkins?” Blanca teased.

  “Very funny!” Alicia giggled but kept her pose. She wanted to learn this dance perfectly.

  Guitar music started to play. The girls fell silent and faced forward.

  Señora Vega sauntered toward them, clapping to the beat.

  “Four, five, six, begin! Right foot, tap in place…left foot forward…right foot touch…right foot back…left foot touch…stand still! Now repeat on the other side! Left foot, tap in place…right foot forward…left foot touch…”

  Señora Vega continued calling out instructions. But Alicia didn’t really need them. Even though it was only her first sevillanas lesson, she had pretty much memorized the choreography for her feet. She learned the arm positions, too, and her arms floated up and down in sync with the music.

  From the record player, the snapping and clacking sound of castanets joined the other instruments. Alicia loved the castanets’ fierce, confident rhythm and how it made her body feel fierce and confident, too.

  They ran through the first copla, or section, a few more times, then stopped to take a break. />
  “Would you young ladies like me to teach you how to play the castanets?” Señora Vega asked. “I have some in the studio.”

  “Yes, please!” Alicia said immediately.

  “Is it hard?” Blanca asked.

  “Not if you practice.”

  Señora Vega reached into a basket for two pairs of castanets. With their shell-shaped lids connected by a hinge, they resembled big clams. They were made of a dark hardwood and had loops of string attached to them.

  Señora Vega showed the sisters how to slip the loops over their thumbs.

  “Is this right?” Alicia held up her castanets. The wood felt smooth and cool in her hands.

  “Yes, exactly! To make the sounds, snap the shells shut and then let go. Snap, let go… Snap, let go… Snap, let go!”

  Alicia and Blanca snapped and let go three times. Clack, clack, clack!

  Maravilloso! Alicia thought.

  She kept snapping and letting go, over and over again. Her feet stomped along with the clacks. They moved in a slow, sweeping circle as the stomps and clacks continued.

  At five o’clock, Mamá arrived at the studio to pick them up. Blanca was in the corner practicing sevillanas arm positions with Señora Vega. Alicia was still dancing and snapping her castanets.

  “Olé, Mamá!” Alicia said with a stomp.

  “Olé, Alicia! It’s time to go home, mijas.”

  “Five more minutes… Pleeeeease?” Alicia begged.

  “Your father is waiting for us back at the house.”

  “Okay, three more minutes, then!”

  Mamá chuckled. “How about two?”

  “Two and a half!”

  Ten minutes later, Mamá and Blanca finally managed to drag Alicia out of the dance studio.

  * * *

  That night as Alicia helped her mother prepare dinner, she came up with an excellent plan.

  “Mamá? Can I keep taking dance lessons when we go back to Cuba?”

  “I don’t know of any dance teachers back home,” Mamá said, handing her a bowl of olives. “Chop these for me, please.”

  “Can you find one, then?”

  “I can try.”

  Alicia popped one of the bright green olives into her mouth. “I want to study dancing! It’s so much better than reading or writing or arithmetic or anything else!” She thought about her private school in Havana, which was run by nuns. Her classes there were not interesting at all.

  “School is important, Alicia. Otherwise, how will you marry into a good family someday?” Mamá pointed out.

  Alicia scrunched up her face. She had no idea what school had to do with marriage.

  “Okay, fine, I’ll keep going to regular school. But I want to dance, too!”

  “I’ll ask some of my friends,” her mother said with a sigh. “Maybe they know of a teacher.”

  Alicia threw her arms around her mother’s waist and hugged her tightly. “Thank you, thank you!”

  “You’re welcome. Now, let’s finish cooking, or we’ll be eating dinner at midnight!”

  Alicia picked up a small knife and chopped the olives slowly and carefully, just like Mamá had taught her to do. As she chopped, her feet tapped along, and in her head, she counted out a sevillanas beat. One, two, three, four, five, six, repeat!

  Alicia never wanted to stop dancing. And why should she, when it was so much fun? Alicia knew some Cuban dances already, and she was learning Spanish dances now. She wondered if there were other styles of dancing from other countries that she could learn.

  Just then, she noticed some empty clamshells in the sink; Mamá had shucked them and was simmering the clam pieces in wine and garlic. Alicia stopped what she was doing and reached over for a couple of clamshells.

  “Olé!” she said, snapping and clacking.

  Mamá laughed and shook her head.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Alicia glanced worriedly at the clock in the lobby of the Pro Arte Musical building. Her mother had kept her promise and found a dance teacher in Havana. But Alicia really had to stop daydreaming about dancing if she wanted to get to class on time and actually dance!

  Señor Yavorsky is going to be mad at me! Alicia thought, breaking into a run. This was the second—no, third time she’d been late for class this month.

  “Alicia!” Leonor, Alicia’s friend and classmate, called to her and waved.

  Alicia stopped at Leonor’s side. “Hi! Did Señor Yavorsky send you out here to look for me?” she asked breathlessly.

  “What? No! I was dying to tell you about the new ballet shoes. Everyone’s trying them on!”

  Alicia blinked, confused. They usually danced in tennis shoes or in their stocking feet.

  “What new ballet shoes?”

  “Someone brought a pair back from Italy. They’re beautiful! All the girls are trying them on. Whoever fits into them gets to keep them.”

  “Wow!” Alicia exclaimed. She wondered what these special ballet shoes would look like. And she hoped they’d fit her.

  “They were too big for me. You should try them on, though.”

  “I will!”

  Alicia flung her bag over her shoulder and hurried to the studio. This was the most exciting thing that had ever happened in ballet class!

  Two years ago, in Spain, when she’d told her mother that she wanted to continue with dance lessons back home, Alicia hadn’t been thinking about ballet. She hadn’t even known what ballet was.

  Alicia’s mother was involved with Pro Arte Musical, a community center that offered concerts and other cultural events. They had also always planned to offer children’s drama, music, and dance classes there, but while she and the others in charge had found drama and music teachers for the program, finding a dance instructor had proved difficult. There was no one like Señora Vega in Cuba. The only available teacher turned out to be Nikolai Yavorsky, a ballet dancer from Russia. So it was to be ballet or nothing.

  Luckily, Alicia fell in love with this new dance style—new to Cuba, anyway—from her very first plié. She loved being able to tell stories and express emotions through the graceful movements. She loved the elegant classical music from Europe, too.

  In fact, she loved ballet so much that she was thinking about becoming a professional ballerina when she grew up! She hadn’t told Mamá or Papá or anyone else yet, but the idea of it felt so right. So Alicia.

  And luckily for her, ballet technique came as naturally to her as did the traditional Spanish dances she’d learned in Señora Vega’s studio. Well, almost as naturally. Ballet technique was difficult. But because she enjoyed it so much, Alicia didn’t mind.

  As Alicia rushed into the practice room, a dozen girls sat in a circle on the gleaming wood floor. A girl named Sofia was trying to squeeze her foot into a pink satin shoe with ribbons dangling from it.

  Señor Yavorsky stood at the barre, watching. “These shoes are called ‘pointe shoes’ because they enable the dancer to stand en pointe, which is French for ‘on the tips of the toes,’ ” he explained to the class. “This is en pointe”—he lifted his right heel and then the ball of his foot until he was on the tips of his right toes—“except you do it with both feet at the same time.”

  “Too small,” Sofia said, pouting. She passed the pointe shoes to the next girl.

  Alicia joined the circle. Her teacher raised his eyebrows at her and tapped his watch. She mouthed, I’m sorry!

  Eventually, it was Alicia’s turn to try on the pointe shoes. They’d been too big or too small for everyone else.

  Captivated, Alicia turned them over in her hands. She’d never seen shoes like these before. They were smooth and stiff, and the toe parts were hard and boxy. The satin was shiny, and the color reminded her of the pale pink roses in her mother’s garden.

  Alicia slipped her right foot into one pointe shoe, then her left foot into the other. She wriggled her toes in the boxy part. She wasn’t sure what to do with the dangling ribbons, though.

  A girl named Beatriz leaned
over and criss-crossed them over Alicia’s shins. “Like this,” she explained, tying the ends into neat bows.

  “Thank you!”

  Alicia stood up slowly, slowly. She lifted herself up onto the very tips of her toes, the way Señor Yavorsky had demonstrated—except that she did it with both feet.

  I’m standing on my toes!

  Balancing carefully, she took a few steps en pointe, making a soft clunk, clunk, clunk along the wood floor. The shoes fit perfectly. But her feet quickly grew tired from holding themselves up like that, so she lowered them and resumed walking normally.

  “The shoes seem to fit, Alicia. I guess they belong to you now,” Señor Yavorsky told her.

  Alicia felt like Cinderella. More importantly, she felt like a real ballerina!

  During class, Alicia did her barre exercises in her new shoes: first position, plié…second position, plié…all the way through to fifth position. She did her floor exercises in them, too: run, jeté, land and then the delicate little cat steps—pas de chat, pas de chat, pas de chat. The stiff, boxy construction of the shoes made the muscles in her feet ache, and she could feel blisters forming. But she didn’t care. She never wanted to take them off!

  Throughout class, Señor Yavorsky strolled around and corrected everyone’s postures and movements as he always did, calling out orders like “Straighten those legs!” and “Hold in your stomachs!” and “Necks up, shoulders down!” He was a tough teacher, and he ran his studio in a strict way.

  But after class, he often showed a softer side. He liked to tell stories about the ballet stars from his home country.

  Today, as the girls put on their coats and street shoes and prepared to go home, he spoke to them about a ballerina he knew named Anna Pavlova.

  “She was as light as a feather when she danced,” he said, staring dreamily across the room as though Pavlova might appear there. “She was so expressive, too! Audiences wept when they saw her in The Dying Swan, which was a short ballet created especially for her. With her movements, she was able to transform herself into a beautiful swan fighting tragically for its life.” He sighed. “Pavlova was and always will be one of the greatest ballerinas in history! Perhaps the greatest! Make no mistake, she had to work very hard to achieve all this. She was a small, frail child, and she had weak, thin ankles. But she practiced! She took extra lessons! She was determined to become the best, and she did just that.”