Press
Release No.2002-36
ALICIA
ALONSO NAMED UNESCO GOODWILL AMBASSADOR
Paris, June 5 - Cuban ballerina
and choreographer Alicia Alonso will be appointed a UNESCO Goodwill
Ambassador for her "outstanding contribution to the development,
preservation and popularization of classical dance" and for
her "devotion to the art-form, through which she has promoted
the ideals of UNESCO and the fellowship of the world's peoples
and cultures." UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura
will formally announce her nomination on June 7 (6.30 p.m.).
For Mr Matsuura, Alicia Alonso
"has combined her Cuban roots with different cultures and
traditions to bring us remarkable artistic creations, and has
helped the growth of dance throughout the Americas and the rest
of the world."
As part of her ambassadorial brief,
she will focus on basic education and the preservation of tangible
and intangible heritage.
Alonso, who is director and choreographer
of the Cuban National Ballet, was born in Havana, where she began
studying dance in 1931. She made her professional debut in the
United States in 1938 after training with Enrico Zanfretta, Alexandra
Fedorova and other teachers at the School of American Ballet.
A year later, she joined the American
Ballet Caravan, predecessor of the New York City Ballet of which
she became a member of in 1940. It was beginning one of the greatest
periods of her career, in which she interpreted roles in the great
romantic and classic works alongside Mikhail Fokine, George Balanchine,
Leonide Massine, Bronislava Nijinska, Antony Tudor, Jerome Robbins
and Agnes de Mille.
She was the star of world premières
of works such as Undertow, Fall River Legend and Theme and Variations.
During this period she also danced as a prima ballerina in a many
countries in Europe and the Americas.
She was keen to foster ballet in
Cuba and in 1948 founded the Alicia Alonso Ballet Company, now
the Cuban National Ballet, which she still directs. Her choreographies
of great classics (such as Giselle, Grand Pas de Quatre, La Bella
Durmiente del Bosque and La Fille mal gardée) are world-renowned
and have been staged by the Ballets of the Operas of Paris, Vienna
and Prague, as well as the Ballet San Carlo in Naples and Milan's
La Scala.
Alonso, who admits to two great
passions, "dancing and life," has honorary doctorates
from Havana University and the Polytechnic University of Valencia
(Spain). In June 1999, UNESCO awarded her its Pablo Picasso Medal
for her outstanding contribution to dance.
As director and leading figure
in the Cuban National Ballet, she has been an inspiration and
guide to a new generation of Cuban ballerinas who have won a distinguished
place in world ballet.
Alonso joins 36 other Goodwill
Ambassadors who, by using their talent and international prestige,
promote UNESCO's ideals of peace, justice, solidarity and mutual
understanding in education, science and culture.
*****
Journalists who
wish to attend the nomination ceremony should contact
the UNESCO Press Service, tel: 01 45 68 17 47
For more information
and for interviews
contact Lucía Iglesias Kuntz, tel: 01 45 68 47 28.
