Alicia Alonso

Alicia Ernestina de la Caridad del Cobre Martínez del Hoyo, known professionally as Alicia Alonso, was born on 21 December 1920 on the outskirts of Havana, Cuba, the fourth child of Antonio Martínez de la Maza Arredondo, a lieutenant veterinarian in the army, and Ernestina del Hoyo y Lugo, a dressmaker. She died on 17 October 2019. Over the course of her life she became recognized as a prima ballerina assoluta, a choreographer, and the founder of what would become the Ballet Nacional de Cuba. Her Broadway appearances spanned from 1938 to 1946, and she is particularly celebrated for her portrayals of Giselle and the ballet version of Carmen.

Alonso began dancing as a child, and in 1929, at age nine, her family relocated to Spain for a year and a half, during which she studied traditional Spanish dances including the Jota, Malagueñas, and Sevillanas. After returning to Cuba in June 1931, she enrolled at the Sociedad Pro-Arte Musical in Havana under the instruction of Nikolai Yavorsky. She performed publicly for the first time on 29 December 1931, at age eleven, and made her first serious debut in Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty at the Teatro Auditorium on 26 October 1932. During this early period in Cuba she performed under the name Alicia Martínez.

Her training was interrupted in 1937 when she married fellow ballet student Fernando Alonso at age sixteen. The couple moved to New York City to pursue professional careers, settling with relatives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan near Riverside Drive. Alonso gave birth to a daughter, Laura, in 1938, while continuing her studies at the School of American Ballet. That same year she made her United States debut, appearing on Broadway in the musical Great Lady and the musical Stars In Your Eyes. Her Broadway career also included the musical Fancy Free and Gizelle.

Beginning at age nineteen, Alonso experienced a progressive eye condition that would shape the remainder of her performing life. In 1941 she was diagnosed with a detached retina and underwent surgery, after which doctors ordered three months of complete bed rest. Unable to stop moving entirely, she practiced pointing and stretching her feet during her recovery. When the bandages were removed, the surgery was found to be only partially successful. A second procedure left her without peripheral vision, and a third surgery in Havana required a full year of bed rest. During that year, her husband Fernando sat with her daily, using their fingers to teach her the major roles of classical ballet. She later described dancing Giselle entirely in her mind while lying flat on her back and blind.

Cleared eventually to return to the studio, Alonso resumed training against her doctors' wishes. After a hurricane shattered a door in her home and sprayed glass onto her head and face without injuring her eyes, her doctor concluded that dancing posed no greater risk and permitted her to perform again. She traveled back to New York City in 1943 to rebuild her technique, and shortly after her arrival she was asked to replace the injured prima ballerina Alicia Markova in Ballet Theatre's production of Giselle. Her performance drew immediate critical acclaim. She was promoted to principal dancer of the company in 1946 and continued dancing Giselle through 1948, also performing in Swan Lake, Antony Tudor's Undertow in 1943, Balanchine's Theme and Variations in 1947, and Agnes deMille's Fall River Legend in 1948, in which she starred as the Accused.

To manage her limited vision onstage, Alonso trained her partners, including Ballet Theatre's Igor Youskevitch, to be positioned exactly where she expected them without exception. Set designers installed strong spotlights in different colors at specific points on the stage to serve as spatial guides. A thin wire was also stretched across the edge of the stage at waist height as an additional marker. Audiences were reportedly unaware of her visual impairment as they watched her perform.

In 1948 Alonso returned to Havana to found her own company, the Alicia Alonso Ballet Company, supported largely through her personal earnings and reputation. Fernando served as general director, and his brother Alberto, a choreographer, served as artistic director. The company debuted in Havana before embarking on a South American tour and eventually became the Ballet Nacional de Cuba in 1955. To develop the company's Cuban identity, Alonso opened a ballet academy in Havana and commuted between Havana and New York to recruit teachers. She danced twice in Russia in 1952 and produced and starred in Giselle for the Paris Opéra Ballet in 1953. From 1955 to 1959 she performed annually as a guest star with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. She was the first dancer from the Western Hemisphere to perform in the Soviet Union, and the first American representative to dance with the Bolshoi in Moscow in 1957 and the Kirov in Leningrad in 1958. In subsequent decades she appeared as a guest star with the Opéra de Paris, the Royal Danish Ballet, the Bolshoi, and other companies across Europe, Asia, and the Americas.