Much more than just another feel-good show packed with perfect-bodied dancers, infectious music and slick costume changes, Ballet Rakatan's contribution to Birmingham's new dance festival, Havana Rakatan, proved to be a slice of life Havana-style spanning 500 years of folklore, social history and music and dance.
And what a story, beginning with colonial Spain-meets-tribal Africa and taking in mythology, slavery, the slums of Havana, the development of dance styles such as the flamenco, mambo, bolero, cha cha cha, rumba and salsa, and the traditional sounds of Cuban dance music, son.
The music was performed by the excellent eight-piece Turquino, including Alberto Pellicer, a dread-locked trumpeter to be reckoned with, while lead vocalist Geydi Chapman, just 23, was stunning.
Each of the 14 dancers was a virtuoso performer, and together, their talent was formidable. They were hand-picked for the Ballet Ratakan company not yet seven years old by its founder and choreographer, Nilda Guerra Sanchez, and most are graduates of the National Art School in Havana, which combines contemporary, modern and folkloric dance.
Their passion and energy never waver as they performed her authentic fast-paced choreography through 20 sequences from an African war dance in grass skirts to the mamba in a Havana nightclub with mirrored ball, and from a sentimental bolero duet to a black-and-bare display of machismo by a finely-honed trio.
What was striking was that throughout the dancers engaged with each other, interacted with the band, got the audience involved and genuinely looked as if they were having fun. They were also sexy, seriously sexy.
And suddenly, we forgot the hard day at the office and the dismal Brummie weather and were groovin' to the red-hot rhythms right there amongst the sounds and smells and heat of Havana and wished we could stay.
