CubaCaribe dance fest returns to S.F. with a world premiere

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If you need a shot in the arm to revive your dance taste buds, the 17th annual CubaCaribe Festival of Dance and Music in the next two weekends may be just what you are looking for.

On March 31 through April 2, the first weekend of the festival, Alayo Dance Company premieres “Mouth of the Shark” at ODC Theater; and on April 7-9 “Reunión/Gathering” brings together seven local and visiting dance
companies at Dance Mission Theater.

Now in its 20th year, CubaCaribe harnesses dance, music and visual arts with the aim of uniting people with different perspectives. With a sizable community of Caribbean and Cuban artists in the Bay Area, the organization focuses on both performances and educational outreach programs to introduce the Afro-Caribbean diaspora’s contemporary and folkloric arts, religion, history and politics to new audiences.

Ramón Ramos Alayo, artistic director and choreographer of at Alayo Dance Company, first came to San Francisco as a guest teacher of Cuban dance in 1996. A year later he moved from Cuba to the Bay Area permanently.

“There was a lot of opportunity to dance here and I was working with a lot of different companies,” he says, citing Joanna Haigood’s Zaccho
Dance Theatre, Robert Moses’ KIN, and Kim Epifano’s Epiphany Dance Theater.

Alayo says he feels lucky that, unlike many immigrants, he was able to support himself in his field of expertise. He eventually started his own company as a way of moving his art forward and not just perpetrating traditional forms.

For this year’s festival he is premiering a new piece created during the pandemic.

“When I do work it’s always personal, about something that has happened in
my life”, he explains. “I had a grant to create a piece on Cuban dancers. I went to Cuba at the beginning of COVID in 2020. The people had so many economic problems. They couldn’t make any money. They couldn’t go out and buy things.”

Fortunately, Alayo says he was able to pay the dancers, and set up a house in Santiago de Cuba, 540 miles southeast of Havana, where they could rehearse.

“Nobody could leave their houses, so I had to make the piece in hiding,” he says. It was a tricky proposition getting the dancers together secretly. They completed the piece in two weeks, then it was recorded by cinematographer/filmmaker
Reinier Charòn Morales, who was hired by Alayo to preserve both the choreography and the entire process of making the work. The resulting film will be part of the live performance at CubaCaribe.

“Mouth of the Shark” was inspired by is a poem titled “Home” by Somali writer Warsan Shire. Alayo says he gave his dancers his own translation of the work.

“They didn’t understand it and I said to read it again. One dancer said his house was the mouth of a shark, and then everyone realized they were all in the same position,” Alayo recalled.

The poem touches on the tortured lives endured by refugees.

“No one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well
your neighbors running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won’t let you stay.”

Alayo spoke after a recent rehearsal that marked the first session for several of the dancers. But he said they were quickly able to adapt to the new choreography because they are recent immigrants from Cuba and they share with him both the verbal language and the body language expressed in the work. Also he concludes, “It’s about the things we have to do to get here. You don’t leave home unless you have to.”

The second weekend features “Reunión/Gathering,” a kaleidoscopic view of Latin
American dance by seven companies: Alafia Dance Ensemble, the Embodiment Project and Cuicacalli, all from from San Francisco; Santa Cruz’s Agua Doce; La Unión Matancera from Los Angeles; San Jose’s Los Lupeños de San José; and
Batey Tambó, which has roots in Oakland and San Francisco.

The theme of reuniting or gathering will be the basis for the newly minted choreography.

The festival also offers master classes for dance enthusiasts.

An Afro-Cuban Modern dance class with Alayo and Marco Palomino is available April 1 at ODC Theater, and Afro-Cuban folklore classes with Emilio Hernandez González, a dancer, choreographer and teacher from Havana via Miami, will be offered April 6-10 at various locations in San Francisco and the East Bay.


CUBACARIBE

A two-week festival of music and dance

Weekend 1: Performance of “Mouth of the Shark,” 7:30 p.m. March 31 and April 1, 4:30 p.m. April 2; ODC Theater, 3153 17th St., San Francisco $25-$35

Weekend 2: “Reunión/Gathering,” 8 p.m. April 7-8, 5 p.m. April 9; Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St., San Francisco; $28

Tickets and information: www.cubacaribe.org

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