Candidates to Succeed Alonso?

[mussel]

Madame Alonzo is in her 90's and soon and later the company is going to need someone to succeed her. Does the company have a succession plan in place? Are there any candidates within the company?

From outside the company I can think of 2 candidates: Jose Carreno and Carlos Acosta. Both are international stars, heavily immersed in Russian classics, the company staples. However, they don't have much experience in running a company.

I anticipate a much more open Cuba post Fidel and hopefully a normalized relationship between the US and Cuba, in that case I think Jose may have an edge in establishing connections with wealthy donors in New York and Miami.

[cubanmiamiboy]

The two main maitres and right hands of Alonso are Mme. Loipa Araujo and Mme. Maria Elena Llorente. The company was supposed to be taken by the late Mme Josefina Mendez, who was the closer to Alonso, but Araujo and Llorente are equally hardcore vigilantes of the mid-century stagings of the classics that Alonso has so carefully kept. On the other side, the company will keep its current guidelines and politics.

[Natalia]

I'm with cubanmiamiboy here. Given the 'hardcore' politics and (charming) mid-century aesthetics within the company, I do not see any of the dancers who made their names overseas succeeding Mme Alonso as the leader of the BNC. A secondary point to consider is the desire to continue feminine leadership...a strong lady succeeded by another.

Loipa Araujo is my most likely candidate - one tough cookie, from my first-hand observations!

[cubanmiamiboy]

Loipa Araujo is my most likely candidate - one tough cookie, from my first-hand observations!

Definitely a VERY tough lady, Natasha! The times I've seen her spaking she even comes out as harsh. Here she is in a completely challenge to her natural persona.

[Quiggin]

I've gotten used to hearing Loipa Araujo's counts and comments (along with an occasional car beep) in the background of videos of BNC lessons, but here's a recently posted one with Anette Delgado & Javier Torres where Araujo steps into the frame to make corrections (about 5 min 30 sec).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG630smVemc

Short interview at 1:10 on the occasion (I think) of a recent documentary "Loipa, existencia en plenitud" by Gloria Arguelles, conveying something perhaps of Araujo's fierceness and charm.

http://www.cubatv.ic...nt&view=article

[cubanmiamiboy]

Thanks for the clip, Quiggin! Why am I not surprised about the ballet being rehearsed..? ( Was I thinking it could maybe be some Forsythe...?..No...not really... )

Interesting...at the very last seconds of the dialogue, Araujo and Delgado discuss the final pose of Aurora's variation. When Araujo notices the way Delgado chooses that very pose, she asks-intrigued-WHO taught it to her it, or where did she take it from...at one point asking her.."Was it Alicia..?" Then, they go back and forth about the way it used to be and the way the pose is being held nowadays, and when Araujo advises her to choose the modern one, she then says, "And if they ask you who was responsible, make me guilty...by the time they do it I won' be here..."