Goodbye to the queen: Bravo Alicia!

October 20, 2019

The hearse moved slowly through the narrow corridors of Colón Cemetery. Behind it, like jealous guardians, walked her students, walked the people of Cuba. Applause echoed through the necropolis, the "Bravo Alicia!" rang out loudly, from the hearts in which Prima Ballerina Assoluta had made an impression.

They say that when she danced, skin would bristle, and that's exactly how her farewell was. The feeling of departure, the pain of family and knowing that her legacy is more alive than ever. "Giselle" closed her eyes, the swan opened its wings and flew.

Hundreds approached the pantheon that from today shelters her. There rest her parents, the family she loved so much, the union that reaches beyond death.

"Bravo Alicia!" You closed with a flourish your final performance. The audience bids you farewell, on their feet and with applause.

A friend of the beloved dancer was tasked with saying the final words, with giving the last goodbye, Eusebio Leal.

"Blessed are you, who upon entering this rest, in that provisional silence of shadows, free yourself from them by the greatness of your iron will, demonstrated so many times. You free yourself from them because you had a gift, among the rare and extraordinary qualities that are given to only a few people in the human race.

"In the great hall where the most rigorous rehearsals and practices usually took place, you could perceive the soft murmur of pointe shoes. You knew of successes and failures, of perfection or of what came close to it, which was and always was your greatest aspiration.

"It was a privilege to see you in that moment, without interrupting you, of course, because a unique peace returned to your face, which only those possess who are content with themselves and who have done well, as José Martí affirmed, the work of life.

"That affirmation was preceded by another no less important: death becomes a chariot of glory for those who have achieved, like you, fame and the love of a people.

"Just a moment ago you had an even greater privilege, the applause and the cries pale before the chords of the National Anthem, of the Cuba that you loved intensely, without hesitation, without doubt, without a single moment in which the idea that the Homeland, of which you were part, that you contributed greatly to sustaining with your work, could at an opportune moment falter, would disturb your spirit.

"I knew you so many years ago my dear, so many years ago, when I was a young pilgrim also seeking my own destiny, and you, with that great generosity, placed your hands upon me, guiding me and encouraging me to continue on the path.

"You were not born in a cradle of poverty, you were not born precisely in the bosom of the poorest and most suffering part of Cuba, yet your soul never separated from them and all your work was aimed at exalting the values of the Cuban people, at making in the midst of the preludes of the social Revolution that unique protest that led you to the heights of the acropolis of Havana, the University, to be embraced by the youth. Many of those who applauded you that day later fell dead by the criminal and barbaric hand, yet you never forgot.

"You are part of Cuba's invisible soul, you are part of our treasure. The theater bears your name. All the honors you deserve, and today's is and is not the last. Your imperishable example will endure (…) The Revolution made and favored your work and your dream, Fidel was able to say one day with reason that you had achieved almost the impossible.

"The jewels you created now accompany you mysteriously like the muses of dreams, although invisible to the eye, they now accompany you. All dance on this day bringing you once more a mystic crown of laurel.

"Since you were so much a daughter of Havana, when hours remain for that 500th anniversary, I wish to hear your words, clear and lucid, which must become an epitaph to place you in a place in this city that you loved so much:

'Havana represents for me above all the roots, because Havana is a city that is always being reborn, that we will never stop building. When the murmur of its streets reaches me, my sensation is not one of nostalgia, my memories do not assail me with the ideal of what will happen again, because in it I feel the naturalness of walking through home, the simplicity of a family relationship (…) In Havana the continuity of our being is assured, the prolongation of each one of us toward the past and toward the future'".