The prima ballerina of the National Ballet of Cuba (BNC), Viengsay Valdes, predicted a future of further exchanges between Cuba and the United States, after the normalization of relations between the two countries was announced.
Luckily, in the field of culture, cultural exchanges between the two nations never stopped, but this major step on December 17 will undoubtedly allow further expanding relations in our field, said the artist, who has been highly acclaimed in the United States.
In 2011, the most important magazine on dance in the United States, Dance Magazine, chose Valdes and then Bolshoi dancer Ivan Vasiliev the Most Inspiring Dancing Partners of the Year, due to their impressive pax de deux of Don Quixote in a gala held in New York.
The establishment of diplomatic relations will allow more Cuban talents to be appreciated in the United States and vice versa, because the audience here also likes to enjoy US artists, she commented.
According to the artist, on December 17, her mother and her husband told her that Cuban President Raul Castro would talk about something important and she postponed her departure from a hotel in Italy for the Regio Theater, where she would dance with the BNC to watch the speech on Cubavision Internacional.
Other dancers also waited to watch the allocution and afterwards everybody's happiness could be felt on stage, that day we danced inspired, Valdes told Prensa Latina.
Performing in other countries helps us to grow as artists and to be able to watch US talents in Cuba is the same, in addition to offering a wider spectrum of the art to the audience, she noted.
The Cuban ballet dancer will perform on January 1 in a gala on the 56th anniversary of the triumph of the Revolution.
In the first trimester of 2015, Valdes will also dance in a charity gala in Spain, and she will play again Kitry, the protagonist of Don Quixote, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, at the invitation of the ballet company of that capital.