New book features unpublished images of Cuban dancer Alicia Alonso

July 4, 2019

When one thinks they have seen everything from Alicia Alonso, a Cuban and universal artist nearly 99 years old, a new book with several unpublished photos of her extraordinary life appears today.

Editorial Ocean Sur, a Latin American project of the Australian Editorial Ocean Press, has just published the book Alicia Alonso. A Look at Her Life Through the Lens, a title with which the publishing house gets ahead of the upcoming celebrations for the artist's centennial, to be held throughout 2020.

Many dancers have reported that they have hurt their backs trying to imitate this position, warned Pedro Simón, director of the Dance Museum, about the image on the cover of the dancer in the middle of the second act of Swan Lake.

However, that is one of the most well-known photos; there are others in Carmen, Giselle, of young Alonso, of her first performances, of the tireless professional in rehearsal halls, in dressing rooms and alongside her current husband in the streets of various countries, that had never been released before.

Graphic designer Yailín Alfaro was in charge of compiling images that, according to her criteria, would serve to reflect the career and magnificent life of a woman admired on five continents.

One of the chapters shows her alongside world personalities such as Pablo Picasso, Gene Kelly, Stevie Wonder, Jimmy Carter, Margot Fonteyn, Galina Ulanova, Pablo Neruda, Fidel Castro, Maurice Bejart, Ivette Chauviré and Jerome Robbins.

The graphic narrative is complemented with texts by José Ramón Neyra to detail information about the dancer's childhood, her family environment, her first dance classes, the beginnings of her professional life, in Cuba and the United States, until her establishment as a leading figure in world ballet.

Alonso received the first printed copies of the book at her home, from the hands of Alfaro and the president of Ocean Press-Ocean Sur publishing houses, David Deutschmann.