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On December 21, 1920, Havana, Cuba, witnessed the birth of Alicia Ernestina de la Caridad del Cobre, whose talent as a ballet dancer would catapult her to world fame under the name Alicia Alonso.
At the age of nine, she left her country to travel with her family to Spain, where she received her first folkloric dance classes in the region of Jerez de la Frontera and Seville.
© Luis DavillaShe returned to Cuba to enter the Ballet School of the Pro-Arte Society of Havana. Her discipline and passion quickly made her the most outstanding of the school.
In 1937, after marrying the also dancer Fernando Alonso. For years, it was thought that her husband had been one of her great mentors in dance; However, it was later revealed that she was the greatest influence on his career.
"I am an eternal romantic. My mother and father were married for life, my parents were the model marriage for me, I was raised differently, I didn't allow anyone to hold my hand, unless it was while dancing. He (Fernando) had the upbringing of that time too, like a conqueror, he was handsome."
© Clifford CoffinAmid her success, in 1941, she was forced to take a break from her career due to a health problem that affected her eyesight. In 1943, she came back stronger than ever to land her first leading role in 'Giselle,' a classic with which she arrived at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. The following years continued her rise in the industry, both in the United States and in Cuba where, in 1948, she founded the National Ballet of Cuba, where she was director, teacher, and choreographer, leading it to become one of the most important in the world.
In 1938, she moved to New York where she joined the American Ballet Caravan, currently known as the New York City Ballet. In the late 1950s, she became the first Cuban dancer to perform in the great theaters of the former Soviet Union, and was invited to the Bolshi in Moscow and the Kirov in Leningrad.
In 1959, after the Cuban revolution, Alicia decided to dedicate most of her time to the development of the company in her country, which led her to tour throughout Latin America. She briefly returned to New York; however, due to political reasons, she did not visit the United States for a long period, but she delighted audiences with her talent in Bulgaria, Poland, China, North Korea, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria. In the 1970s, she performed with the Cuban National Ballet in Luxembourg, Monaco, Italy, and France.
© JMNIn 1975, Alicia Alonso divorced Fernando Alonso amid rumors of infidelity on his part. Although she was not a fan of talking about her past, in 2011, during a conversation with Ismael Cala, she recalled the divorce from the father of her only daughter, Laura.
At the height of her career, Alicia faced one of the most challenging moments of her life when her vision problems returned and she had to decide between her passion and her sight. Because the treatment to treat the retinal detachment she suffered during her 20s, was based on cortisone (a medication that among its side effects presents weight gain), she made the decision to abandon it and sacrifice her vision to be able to dance. It was then that the myth of Alicia Alonso was born, the dancer who only saw shadows.
You get used to everything because you realize that you are prepared in life to not be in perfect condition; if you lack sight, hearing is fabulous, smell is incredible, the palate, touch, and instinct, all this develops incredibly."
It was in November 1995, days before celebrating her 75th birthday, that the dancer stepped onto pointe shoes for the last time, in a performance at the Teatro Masini in Faenza, Italy.
© LipnitzkiIn her later years, Pedro Simón Martínez, her second husband, became “her eyes.” In her last interview, she acknowledged that waking up next to him was her favorite moment of the day: “It’s a new life, it’s the future we’re making,” she commented on the 44-year marriage she had with the writer and critic.
Alicia Alonso died on October 17, 2019, in Havana, Cuba, at the age of 95, leaving an important legacy in the world of ballet that will remember her with the same devotion with which she danced the most important classics.
"Something incredible is that all the ballets that I have in my head; when I sit down and start to remember them, it is as if I were playing on a machine, I have never forgotten them."
