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DANZA CONTEMPORANEA DE CUBA Triple bill of passionate contemporary dance turns up the heat
The last time we saw Annabelle López Ochoa’s work in Scotland, it was set in a hot and steamy New Orleans. And this time around, the choreographer of Scottish Ballet’s stunning A Streetcar Named Desire has been inspired by even warmer climes. Created in Havana for Danza Contemporánea de Cuba, Reversible plays with ideas of gender and sexual power, exploring the rivalry between men and women. ‘In Cuba, the game between the sexes and seduction is an obvious one,’ says
Ochoa. ‘The way they dress and act – women move and express themselves through their hips and men through their upper body. So when I came to choreograph the dancers, I used their power and extrovert nature but I also wanted to infuse poetry and sensuality into the piece, because sensuality is omnipresent in Cuban culture.’ Reversible will sit alongside The Listening Room by Theo Clinkard (where dancers wear headphones playing different music to the
sounds which the audience will hear), and the award-winning Matria Etnocentra by Danza Contemporánea de Cuba’s resident choreographer, George Céspedes. One thing they’ll all have in common is the company’s inimitable Cuban style. As Ochoa says: ‘if I wanted to take Reversible to another company, I’d have to re-do sections, because the theme of gender is universal, but the dancing is specifically Cuban.’ (Kelly Apter) ■ Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Tue 14 & Wed 15 Mar.
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