Orlando Salgado, who was the first dancer of the National Ballet of Cuba, believes that dance “is not an elitist art, because man began to celebrate what he did through movement when he was in the caves.”
Salgado, who rose to the category of first dancer in the National Ballet of Cuba in 1976 and was Alicia Alonso’s artistic partner for more than two decades, explained to the agency EFE that “movement is implicit in the human being”, so that dance, throughout history, has developed to the point that each country has its differences in folklore.
“I have traveled a lot and the theaters are always full of people who like dance, which is an expensive art, but not impossible to afford,” he stressed.
The dancer visited the Dance Forest in the city of Logroño, where there is a tree planted with the name of his wife, Marta García, now deceased and who was also the first dancer of the National Ballet of Cuba.
Salgado, born in San Antonio de los Baños, in 1952, but raised in Mantilla, said that visiting the Dance Forest and the trees that are planted in tribute to his former wife and other dancers around the world was “very exciting and a very beautiful trip.”
“The Dance Forest is very beautiful and of tremendous value and love because these personalities are remembered through a tree, which, at some point, blooms a flower,” he noted.
This initiative, he continued, “is an idea that, perhaps, is unique in the world and to which those who live here and the authorities should give maximum attention.”
The Logroño Dance Forest, inaugurated in 2009, has an urban character and its trees are named after professionals from the world of dance, with the aim of turning this space into a great dance dictionary.
Among them, there are trees with the names of well-known dancers such as Ana Pavlova, Alicia Alonso, Nijinski, Antonio ‘El Bailarín’, Nureyev, Margot Fonteyn, Mariemma, José Limón, Tamara Rojo, José Carlos Martínez, Laura Hormigón, Óscar Torrado and Lucía Lacarra, among others.
Salgado debuted in 1972 with Loipa Araújo, as recalled in the blog Gaspar, The Local. In addition to his work with the National Ballet of Cuba, together with his wife he worked with the Ballet Estable of the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires.
