Fernando Alonso Rayneri

Dancer, choreographer and pedagogue. Recipient of the National Dance Prize and the National Prize for Artistic Teaching.

Son of Matías Alonso and Laura Rayneri, who was a concert pianist and president of the Pro-Arte Musical Society. He was the eldest son of the marriage between a concert pianist and an accountant for an American company. In his childhood he received violin lessons, studied primary education at a Catholic school, and secondary education in Alabama, United States, where he practiced American football and gymnastics.

He used to spend his summer vacations in Havana. In December 1931 he attended the first function of the Dance School of the Pro Arte Musical Society and fell in love with ballet, which, according to him: "brought together music and physical exercise, his two passions". A year later he attended the presentation of "The Sleeping Beauty", and was impressed by the young dancer Alicia Martínez (Alicia Alonso). His passion for dance grew when his younger brother, Alberto Alonso Rayneri, entered Pro Arte shortly after.

In 1935, having completed his secondary studies in the United States, he returned to Havana and decided to begin ballet studies at the School of the Pro Arte Musical Society, then presided over by his mother. He made his stage debut the following year with the ballet "Moonlight", alongside Alicia Alonso, and love immediately blossomed between them. The Cuban press echoed this debut, describing him as a slender, strong young man with great abilities as a dancer.

Despite his employment in a British commercial office producing dividends, he decided to abandon job stability to dedicate himself completely to dance. He returned to the United States to prepare for his marriage to Alicia, which took place in 1937 in New York City. The following year Laura was born, their only daughter.

He studied ballet in Cuba with Nicolás Yavorski, and in New York with Mijail Mordking, Mijail Fokine and Alexandar Fedórova, among others.

He debuted in 1937 as a dancer in the Mordking Ballet Company. He also studied at the School of American and joined in 1939 the American Ballet Caravan directed by George Balanchine. The following year he joined the cast of the Ballet Theater of New York (now American Ballet Theatre), eventually achieving the rank of soloist and performed "Peter and the Wolf", by Adolf Bolm and "Three Virgins and a Devil", by Agnes de Mille as such. Similarly, he performed Mercutio in "Romeo and Juliet", by Anthony Tudor, and participated in ballets by Balanchine, Fokine, Dolin, Nijinska, Massine and Robbins. Later he was contracted with the American Ballet Theatre, as well as with the Russian Ballet of Monte Carlo, reaching the category of first soloist.

His interest in developing ballet in Cuba made him return to his country every year to collaborate with the Ballet of the Pro Arte Musical Society with the interpretation of leading roles.

For the Society, in 1945, together with his then wife, Alicia Alonso, he staged the ballet "Giselle", performed at the Auditorium theater (now Teatro Auditorium Amadeo Roldán).

On October 28, 1948, together with Alicia and Alberto, he founded the Ballet Alicia Alonso (now National Ballet of Cuba), where he danced, taught and directed until 1974. Founder of the National School of Ballet in 1962, he was its director until 1968. In it he laid the foundations of the methodology of Cuban ballet teaching and its first study plans. Since then he has held the position of national advisor on ballet teaching methodology.

Fernando Alonso has taught in Russia, France, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, United States, Mexico, Colombia; in the most important companies, schools and academies.

In 1975 he joined the Ballet of Camagüey, a company he directed until 1992, the year he was invited by the National Institute of Fine Arts to direct the National Dance Company of Mexico. He has taught and directed rehearsals at the Paris Opera, The Royal Ballet of Walonie, at the Ballet Twentieth Century of Maurice Béjart, as well as in Bulgaria, Moscow, Leningrad, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, China, to mention only some of the 58 countries visited by him, many of them on more than one occasion.

He participates as a judge in the most important Ballet Festivals. He is founder of the Speleological Society of Cuba, is a member of the UNESCO International Dance Council. He has been recognized: Doctor Honoris Causa of the Higher Institute of Art of Cuba and of the Autonomous University of Nuevo León, Mexico, Order of Merit of Greece Dance Prize, of the Autonomous University of Nuevo León; he has received the Raúl Gómez García Distinction, the Giraldilla of Havana, the Shield of the city of Camagüey and the Frank País Order of Second Grade.

As a dancer, his last performance was in 1956 in a public performance at the Stadium of the University of Havana.

Deserving of countless awards and distinctions in Cuba and around the world, some are:

Doctor Honoris Causa of the Higher Institute of Art
Félix Varela Order of First Grade
National Dance Prize, in Cuba
Commemorative Medal of the Bicentenary of the Bolshoi Theater of Moscow, in Russia
Benois Dance Prize, also in the Russian capital.

Source: CubaDebate, Ecured