Image Gallery
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- The members of Danza Contemporanea run through an intense hour-long Afro-Cuban dance drill. We saw this early in our shooting and were really blown away. You'll see an amazing excerpt of this in the film.
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- The house drummers for Danza Contemporanea. These guys are always on hand to accompany the dancers with their high octane, traditional playing. They had a lot to tell us about the connections between Cuban dance, religion and folklore.
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- There's a lot going on in the streets of Havana, especially at night. Here, a crowd gathers for a concert.
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- Our cameras always drew attention. Cubans aren't shy, and everywhere we went people were eager to pose.
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- The Havana skyline. A fisherman takes a break from the bustle of the city.
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- A side street in a quiet section of Havana. What you see in the movies isn't an exaggeration; the 1950s cars are everywhere.
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- Future members of Danza Contemporanea?
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- Everywhere you look in Havana, someone is jury-rigging something. As Pedro puts it, the Cubans are great at making something from nothing.
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- Pedro outside the house where he was born, hugging his godfather Eduardo. They hadn't seen each other in 30 years so it was an emotional reunion.
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- Yaday Ponce preparing for her role in Horizons. Yaday represents the Afro-Cuban goddess Yemaya, and she's definitely well suited to the role of goddess.
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- Yosmell Calderon and Heidy Batista practice their duet. As Heidy put it in one of our interviews (in English): “We have the chemistry together.”
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- Osnel Delgado taking a break between rehearsals. The dancers practice for 6 – 8 hours everyday, and there's very little resting.
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- Yaday at one of the final rehearsals for Horizons. Practice sessions were getting very intense by this point.
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- Pedro coaches Heidy and Yosmell just after a dress rehearsal. Heidy told us she found Pedro's complex choreography difficult to master, so she was really nervous about getting it right. (As you'll see in the performance, she did!)
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- Danza Contemporanea performing Horizons at Havana's Mella Theater. Along with their grace and musicality, the dancers are incredible athletes.
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- Yaday dominating the stage as the goddess Yemaya.
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- Check out the height these two dancers achieve, and how in sync they are.
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- One of many moments in Horizons that exude sheer exuberance.
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- Here's how Osnel described this part of the dance in our interview: “Sometimes it's like flying. You go on the stage from one point to another, and you take your way like the winds. If people see that I fly, that's good.”
Photographs by Alex Lowther; Captions by Julie Cohen