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Defecting Cuban dancers to perform with US ballet company
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SEVEN Cuban ballet dancers who defected over the weekend while on tour in Puerto Rico will take the stage next week with a Miami-based troupe, the American company said Tuesday.
The Cuban dancers will perform Sunday with the Cuban Classical Ballet of Miami less than a week after bolting from the prestigious National Ballet of Cuba after a performance at Puerto Rico's Center for Performing Arts.
The founder and artistic director of the Cuban Classical Ballet of Miami, Pedro Pablo Pena, has in the past been supportive of dancers who choose to leave the Communist island.
"This company is meant to be a platform for these dancers, so they can leave Cuba but continue their careers in the United States," Pena said.
The exact number of defectors could not be officially confirmed by the US State Department in Washington or US immigration and customs officials in San Juan. In local media reports, there were eight.
Three of the dancers, Monica Gomez, Carlos Ignacio Galindez and Raisel Cruz arrived in Miami from Puerto Rico on Saturday.
Three others, Jorge Oscar Sanchez, Ariel Soto and Liset Santander, arrived late Monday, according to the Miami Herald newspaper.
The seventh dancer Yaima Mendez -- the first to defect -- arrived in Miami before the second group of three in unclear circumstances; and the eighth, Gineth Fernandez, was still in Puerto Rico and due in Miami soon, said Galindez.
The group cited economic and not political reasons for leaving Cuba.
"Young people just have no future in Cuba" Cruz told a press briefing.
Galindez concurred.
"I am the oldest son. I have to help my family and over there it was impossible," he said.
Cubans typically earn the equivalent of about $20 a month. President Raul Castro, 83, has refused any political opening, and the state still controls most of the crippled Soviet-style economy.
Sunday's gala performance honoring Russian ballet is to feature celebrated prima ballerina Lorena Feijoo, who herself defected from Cuba years ago.
Puerto Rico is a mostly Spanish-speaking US commonwealth in the Caribbean, meaning Cubans can stay and seek US residency if they arrive there -- and can easily travel to Miami or elsewhere in the United States.
The delegation that traveled to San Juan included more than 50 people, including the Cuban ballet company's legendary director Alicia Alonso, 92.
The visually-impaired prima ballerina returned to Cuba from New York just after Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution.
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