Alicia Alonso Takes the Stage

by Rebel Girls

  Alicia clutched her pointe shoes in her hands—she didn’t want to put them away in her bag just yet—and leaned forward to listen intently to her teacher. She imagined a young girl with her small, frail body and weak, thin ankles practicing and taking extra lessons and growing stronger, more nimble. Then she imagined that girl grown-up, dancing on grand stages all over the world, moving the crowd to tears and thunderous applause.

  If Anna Pavlova could work hard to become one of the greatest ballerinas in history, maybe Alicia could do the same?

  * * *

  Later that week, as Alicia got ready for bed, she overheard her parents talking quietly about her in the hallway.

  “She won’t take off those pink ballet shoes of hers,” Papá was saying. “She greets me at the door in them when I get home from work. I think she sleeps with them, too.”

  Alicia glanced across her room. The pointe shoes were on her pillow next to her teddy bear. Where they belonged. She kept them close, and they helped her have the most wonderful dreams about ballet!

  “Alicia does love her ballet classes,” Mamá replied. “She’s even dropped her drama classes at Pro Arte Musical so that she can focus on ballet.”

  “As long as it’s just a passing phase. I will not have my daughter becoming a professional dancer.”

  “No, of course not.”

  Alicia frowned. Why “of course not”? Didn’t her parents realize that she might be a future ballet star?

  She turned out the lights, climbed into bed, and hugged her ballet shoes close as she fell asleep. She hoped she would have a dream about her stage debut. Would it be one of the dances her teacher had told her about, like The Dying Swan? Or some other ballet altogether?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Alicia’s stage debut eventually happened at Señor Yavorsky’s studio recital in December 1931. The recital consisted of lots of different dances from different ballets. Alicia was in a small ensemble dance, and she loved being onstage in front of an audience!

  The following year, Alicia danced onstage again, this time in a production of the Sleeping Beauty ballet. She was assigned the part of the bluebird, which involved lots of difficult jumping and spinning and fluttering. Afterward, Señor Yavorsky told her that she had become one of his best pupils, which made her want to jump and spin and flutter for joy!

  Alicia continued to practice and take extra classes, yet ballet never felt like work to her. It had become the center of her universe, and she loved it so much that she was only truly happy when she was dancing. She spent every free minute she had at Pro Arte Musical. She rarely saw her school friends. She gave up her other hobbies, like roller skating and horseback riding, because she was worried about getting hurt and having to miss her ballet classes. And when she wasn’t dancing, she was usually at home reading books about dance.

  When Alicia was thirteen, she was cast as one of the leads in a ballet called Coppélia. She danced the part of Swanilda, a young woman who was in love with a young man named Franz, who in turn was in love with a doll named Coppélia.

  A dancer named Alberto Alonso danced the role of Franz. Alberto was the son of Laura Rayneri de Alonso, the new head of Pro Arte Musical. There had been some big changes since Señora Rayneri took over. For example, there were boys in the ballet classes now, like Alberto.

  The opening night of Coppélia was a huge success. After the finale, the audience burst into wild applause. Someone threw a bouquet of flowers onto the stage. Alberto scooped it up and gave it to Alicia. She clasped it to her chest as she curtsied. What a magical night!

  Friends and family members came backstage to congratulate Alicia and Alberto and the other cast members. One of them happened to be Alberto’s older brother, Fernando. He was tall and handsome, with thick dark hair and warm brown eyes.

  “Your dancing was beautiful,” Fernando said to Alicia as they shook hands. “You were perfect in that role.”

  “Thank you! I tried to make myself become Swanilda in my head,” Alicia babbled excitedly. “Who was she, what was she like? After that, the movements came easily. They were Swanilda’s movements, not mine.”

  “That sounds like a very artistic approach,” Fernando remarked. “Say…I don’t know if you remember me, but we’ve met before. I came by your house once to see your brother Antonio, but it was ages ago now. You answered the door wearing your ballet shoes and standing on your toes, with your arms like this.” Fernando raised his own arms above his head in fifth position.

  “Oh!”

  Alicia blushed and buried her face in her bouquet. It was embarrassing to think that he’d seen her during that phase in her life, when she’d been a silly little girl obsessed with ballet. Of course, she was still obsessed with ballet. She just wasn’t silly anymore.

  Alicia lowered the bouquet to her side and stood a little straighter. “I think I do remember you,” she said. “You gave Antonio a ride to a party.”

  “Yes, that’s right! How is Antonio doing, by the way? I haven’t seen him in a while.”

  “He’s annoying. But he’s fine, I guess.”

  Fernando laughed.

  Alberto ambled up to them and threw his arm around his brother’s shoulders. “So? What did you think of the performance?”

  “Speaking of annoying brothers…” Fernando whispered to Alicia with a wink. Alicia giggled.

  “Alicia was fantastic. You were awful,” Fernando teased Alberto.

  “Funny! Maybe you should take ballet lessons, too, and we can see who’s the better dancer.”

  “Ballet lessons. Hmm…” Fernando smiled at Alicia. “Maybe I will.”

  “You should! Ballet is amazing,” Alicia said eagerly. “I plan to be a professional ballerina someday,” she added.

  “I have no doubt that you will become very famous. And I can tell everyone that I knew you way back when,” Fernando told her.

  “Well, if you take lessons, maybe you’ll become a professional ballerina, too. I mean, ballet dancer. You’re a boy, so…”

  Alicia blushed again. Why was she blushing so much? Fernando made her feel a bit awkward. But in a good way. What was that about?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  True to his word, Fernando began taking lessons with Señor Yavorsky, and he grew to love ballet almost as much as Alicia did. Over the years, the two of them danced in many performances together, and they became some of the brightest stars in the studio.

  Fernando also grew to love Alicia, and she loved him back. They were a perfect pair on and off the stage. Alicia had never been so happy.

  One evening after a ballet rehearsal, Alicia and Fernando took a walk through a neighborhood called Old Havana. They admired the fine old buildings and the cobblestoned plaza as they strolled hand in hand.

  Alicia had seen these buildings and plazas a million times before. But with Fernando, everything seemed fresh and new and beautiful.

  “Havana is so pretty, isn’t it?” Alicia said dreamily. “I wish we could stay here forever.”

  “You want to leave?” Fernando asked.

  “I worry that we might be outgrowing it,” Alicia said, her voice tinged with sadness. “We’ve learned everything we can from Señor Yavorsky. I feel like we need new mentors. But there aren’t any other ballet teachers in Havana.”

  Fernando stopped in front of Fuente de los Leones, a fountain surrounded by four stone lions. He turned to face her, his eyes bright with excitement.

  “I’ve been thinking about this, too,” he said. “And I think I have a solution.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. What if we moved to America?”

  Alicia laughed. “America?”

  “I was thinking about New York City.”

  “New York City…” she repeated, imagining what an adventure that would be.

  “Just think about it, Alicia! There’s so much happening there around dance! George Balanchine, the famous Russian choreographer—”

  “Señor Yavorsky told us a story about him once,”
Alicia recalled.

  “Yes! Balanchine has moved to New York to start a dance company called the School of American Ballet. Everyone’s talking about it! And if not that one, New York has lots of other dance companies. Cuba has none.”

  Alicia’s head was spinning. Fernando was onto something—and to be honest, she’d had her own fantasies about going abroad to study ballet. Alberto, Fernando’s brother, had recently moved to Paris to join the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Why shouldn’t she and Fernando follow in his footsteps and leave Havana behind, expand their horizons?

  Still, their lives and their families were here. And what would their teacher say?

  “Wouldn’t Señor Yavorsky be upset with us?” she asked Fernando.

  “I think he would encourage us to go, just as he did with Alberto. He knows we need to grow as dancers to reach the next level.”

  “Well, then…what would our parents say? Especially my parents?”

  “We’ll have to have a long conversation with them. Hopefully, they’ll understand.”

  Alicia considered this. Mamá had always been supportive of her dancing. She’d even sewn tutus for Alicia and the other girls in the studio. Papá, on the other hand, had never taken her dancing seriously. He still thought of it as a “passing phase.” He didn’t believe professional dancing was proper for a young woman of Alicia’s social class. She disagreed, of course, but it was hard to convince him otherwise. Maybe by moving abroad, she could escape his negative attitude and shape her own destiny, become the ballerina she had always longed to be?

  In the distance, Alicia could see the beach and the dark waters of the bay. Somewhere beyond was America. New York City.

  Fernando whispered in her ear.

  “What?” Alicia asked, not quite sure she’d heard him correctly.

  “We could get married,” he repeated.

  “What?”

  Fernando grinned. Then he got down on one knee in front of the fountain, took her hand in his, and kissed it tenderly. “Will you, Alicia Ernestina de la Caridad del Cobre Martínez y del Hoyo, be my wife and move to America with me?”

  Alicia began to laugh and cry at the same time. People passing through the plaza stared curiously at them. It seemed as though the four stone lions perched on the fountain were watching them, too. But she didn’t care. The moment was just for her and Fernando.

  Of course she belonged with him. No one understood her love of dance the way he did. And he was right that they belonged in New York City. Together.

  She nodded through her laughter and tears. “Yes! And yes!”

  Their future was set. Alicia couldn’t wait!

  * * *

  “You can still change your mind,” Mamá said as Alicia packed her clothes into a brown leather travel trunk.

  Alicia shook her head. “I won’t, Mamá.” Alicia and Fernando had recently married, and she was getting ready to move to the United States.

  “New York City is so far away.”

  “I promise we’ll visit.”

  Mamá sat down on the edge of Alicia’s bed and twisted her hands in her lap. Her face was lined with worry. Alicia knew that her mother had spent weeks trying to convince Papá to let her live in America with Fernando, even though she herself wasn’t crazy about the idea. Papá had finally given in, although he was still not happy about it.

  Fernando was already in New York. He’d gotten a job dancing with Mikhail Mordkin’s ballet company, and he was waiting for Alicia to join him. She’d received postcards from him with images of Central Park, the Statue of Liberty, and the Empire State Building. The city looked exciting but also very different from Havana.

  Alicia reached for her favorite white silk blouse and tried to fold it. But the thin, delicate fabric slipped through her fingers. She tried again, with no success.

  “Here.” Mamá took the blouse from her, laid it down on the bed, and folded it neatly.

  “Gracias, Mamá.”

  “You’ll learn these things, mijita. You’ll be in charge of your own household soon.”

  Alicia gulped. Her own household. She’d known this fact in her mind, but the reality of it was only now starting to sink in.

  She was still so young, and yet she was about to board a ship bound north for America, to a new life and a new home and a new husband. And a new career. She would not have Mamá or the rest of her family to help with any of it. She had to be an adult now.

  I can do this, she told herself. I can make my own way.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The living room in Alicia and Fernando’s New York City apartment was much smaller than her family’s back in Havana. Sometimes, reminiscing about her childhood, Alicia tried to picture Mamá, Antonio, Elizardo, Blanca, and herself here, dancing and singing and reading poems to Papá as he sat contentedly in his rocking chair. But there was barely enough space in her new home for a rocking chair, much less a makeshift stage.

  Still, Alicia—now Alicia Alonso—practiced her dance steps in that tiny living room every day. Sometimes, she danced with Fernando. Sometimes, she danced by herself. She continued to do ballet, but she also practiced Spanish and Cuban dances, like sevillanas and rumba and salsa. She’d even brought her castanets from home, although she tried not to play them too loudly, in case the neighbors complained. Likewise with her foot stomping!

  Outside, snow fell and blanketed the busy, bustling street in white. The climate in Cuba was too warm for it to snow, and Alicia was fascinated by the wintry weather. She put a record on the record player—“Waltz of the Snowflakes” from the Nutcracker ballet—and began to make up her own steps to go with the lovely, lilting music. As she eyed the snowflakes falling outside, she tried to imitate their movements. With quick, light feet and gently fluttering arms, she transformed herself into a fluffy snowflake swirling and whirling in the winter wind.

  Church bells chimed from somewhere in the neighborhood. It was six o’clock, and Fernando would be home soon. He was busy rehearsing and performing with Mordkin’s ballet. Alicia was eager to be hired by an American ballet company, too, but it would have to wait a little while longer. She and Fernando were expecting a baby.

  * * *

  “Where did you learn how to dance? You are quite exceptional,” Enrico Zanfretta told Alicia. The seventy-year-old ballet teacher leaned on his cane as he looked over her arabesque. Her right leg was extended behind her and perfectly turned out while she balanced on her left leg. Her arms were lifted gracefully to the side and to the front.

  Alicia eased out of her arabesque, toweled off her face, and smiled at Mr. Zanfretta. She was still learning English, but just like dancing, she knew she would only improve with practice. “I studied ballet in Havana. Where I used to live,” she replied.

  “If you keep studying and practicing, you could become a great ballerina.”

  Alicia beamed. She’d begun taking lessons with Mr. Zanfretta shortly after the baby was born—Laura, named after Fernando’s mother. The lessons cost twenty-five cents each, which was a lot of money for Alicia and Fernando. They were no longer the privileged young children of wealthy Cuban families, but newlyweds and new parents trying to make it on their own in a foreign country. Alicia was determined to succeed, though.

  So while Fernando rehearsed and performed and toured with the Mordkin’s ballet company, Alicia left Laurita, as she was called, with friends and neighbors when she studied with Mr. Zanfretta. He was well-known for training many famous ballet dancers. Alicia planned to audition for ballet companies—or maybe one of the big ballet schools, as a stepping stone—as soon as she felt she was ready.

  Then, in 1938, her ballet journey took an unexpected turn.

  After Fernando’s work with Mordkin’s ballet company was over, he found his next job in a musical called Three Waltzes. This was not ballet but musical theater. It was an entirely different style of dance.

  Alicia sometimes accompanied Fernando to rehearsals for Three Waltzes; she loved being around other dancers, even if sh
e wasn’t in the production. One day on the set, the dance director, Marjorie Fielding, happened to see Alicia dancing with Fernando as she helped him rehearse a number.

  Alicia noticed the dance director noticing her. She smiled and executed a flashy pirouette. Ms. Fielding laughed. When Fernando went to speak to the pianist, she walked over to Alicia.

  “Impressive,” Ms. Fielding told Alicia. “You are very talented. Where did you study dance?”

  “In Havana. And I’ve been taking lessons here, too. With Mr. Zanfretta,” Alicia replied.

  “Well, it shows. And we could use another talented dancer in the cast. How would you like to join our little show?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you! I could choreograph a special dance number just for you, to show off your skills.”

  Alicia considered this. It was not ballet, but it was a job in dance—her very first one!

  “Yes, I would love that. Thank you!” she replied. She and Ms. Fielding shook hands.

  And so Three Waltzes became Alicia’s American dance debut. The shows took place at an enormous open-air stadium at Jones Beach, just outside New York City, in front of a massive audience of more than ten thousand people. Dressed in a white chiffon gown, Alicia danced with two male partners. The number Ms. Fielding had choreographed for her was an elegant waltz with lots of complicated turns and lifts.

  After Three Waltzes, Alicia was cast in other musical theater productions, and so was Fernando. Musical theater involved even more storytelling than ballet, and Alicia had always been good at understanding the characters she portrayed, like Swanilda in Coppélia, and using movements and facial expressions to tell their stories.