La tradición medieval y renacentista encarnada en La danza de la muerte me ha fascinado desde mi temprana adolescencia. Los esqueletos musicantes y danzantes que sacan a bailar a papas y emperadores, reinas y marquesas, labriegos y médicos, cortesanas y monjas, estas calacas que sonrientes y fiesteras los invitan a participar del último jolgorio, la postrera jarana, el parison del estribo me han tentado por más de medio siglo a …
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I like dancing, and no better dance than samba. My samba, though, always feels, as it no doubt looks, like a stilted attempt at the dance, rather than the real thing. I can recognize that in videoclips from Rio’s Sambadrome, in the street during the Carnivals of Olinda and Salvador, or when Brazilian friends dance in celebration of a World Cup victory. Real samba is a body unselfconsciously flowing in response to a syncopated beat, melding …
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Once, people of the ocean, from the coast, moved to the valley, hoping to put the Andes between them and Colombia’s decades of killing. Now, 28 of their grandchildren stood on the cusp of history. No, they danced on it. Their $2-a-week-salsa dance classes and rehearsals at Luis Carlos Caicedo’s Nueva Dimension academy on the gritty outskirts of Cali had paid off. The group of grade-schoolers and teens had scored an invitation …
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I arrive at Santiago de Cuba’s Teatro Oriente to see a small crowd of locals and tourists waiting in front to buy tickets. We are here to see a performance by Ballet Folklórico Cutumba, one of eastern Cuba’s premier folkloric dance troupes. Although the theater is run down and no longer has electricity or running water, its former elegance is apparent. As we enter, we see lush but tattered velvet drapes flank the stage and ornate architectural …
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Tal vez sorprenda al lector el título de este artículo, como también sorprende a todo aquel desprevenido viajero que llega al Valle Inferior del Río Chubut, en la Patagonia Argentina. Encontrar nombres de pueblos y zonas rurales en idioma galés, niños que aprenden el idioma desde su primera infancia, jóvenes que bailan danzas galesas, alguna bandera blanca y verde con un enorme dragón rojo flameando en un mástil; afinadas voces …
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