The tour is the
latest in a series of cultural exchanges that began after US President Barack
Obama took office as the longtime ideological foes seek common ground they have
been unable to find politically since Cuba's 1959 revolution. The Cuban troupe
will perform on Tuesday in Washington then go to New York and Costa Mesa,
California before wrapping up in Los Angeles on June 26.
The New York-based
American Ballet Theater and members of the New York City Ballet performed
before ecstatic audiences in Havana in November, creating good vibes that
Alonso said on Friday she hopes to duplicate. "All the people were very
happy, so it was a very different change," she said of the performances by
the U.S. companies.
"I hope this time we're going there and it's going to
be exactly the same - happiness (for) all of us," she told Reuters after
presiding over a rigorous rehearsal by the Cuban troupe at its Havana
headquarters. Alonso, who is 90 and nearly blind, danced in the American Ballet
Theatre in the 1940s and 1950s, but returned to Cuba after the revolution and
took over the Cuban National Ballet.