The Antonio Gades Company, now on a tour of the island, performed at the Garcia Lorca Hall of the capital’s Grand Theater. The group was created seven years after the death of its Maestro and now visits Cuba for the first time, when the 75th anniversary of Gades’s birth is celebrated.

Opening the program was “Bodas de sangre”, inspired in a homonymous work by Federico Garcia Lorca, which was followed by “Suite Flamenca”. Many members of the audience tried to follow rhythms with their hands and feet, in the hope of joining what was happening on stage, in a collective celebration for Gades -an innovator of Spanish dances-, his art and his people.

Undoubtedly, Maria Stella Arauzo, in artistic direction, and the professionals that worked together very closely with Gades for many years, managed to pass on his spirit to the youngest members of the group.

Shining among the group’s treasures were flamenco singers Gabriel Mateo Cortes Cortes, Francisco Jonathan Fernandez Cortes, Enrique Pantoja Monje and Alfredo Tejada Zurita, and their skillful guitarists Andres Carmona Silva and Juan Antonio Zafra Moreno.

Participating in the Theater Festival were some 80 companies from 17 nations, a real fiesta of encounters between professors and disciples, different aesthetic concepts -Cuban and foreign-, new and acclaimed artists, and the public. The event’s presentations were enjoyed by over 60,000 theater lovers in 25 locations in this capital, aside from those held at parks, schools and hospitals.

The Antonio Gades Company also delighted the public gathered at Havana’s Grand Theater on Monday night, while on Wednesday its followers will be able to enjoy its performances at the Heredia Theater, in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba.