←Recommendations of Alicia

In “Alicia” J. Lois Diamond dramatizes the career of the great Cuban ballerina Alicia Alonso with cinematic scope. We meet Alicia, old and blind, and, as she talks to dance students, through flashback, recounts her life. Choral roles populate scenes with multiple characters, while Alicia’s dancing comes to life in beautifully crafted dialog. In Diamond’s telling, Alicia wanted only to dance, no matter the cost to others or to herself, and despite her willfulness, sympathetic. Highly recommended.

I had to great fortune of hearing this play performed by the Depot. Like other works by J. Lois Diamond, I was taken along on this path of discovery that had me in awe of this woman who despite such obvious health setbacks wanted nothing more but to do what she loved to do which was dance and dance she did. Flawed, yes, but those flaws are presented with such masterful skill by the playwright that you will stand up and cheer for this person who succeeded in this world despite the struggles and pain.

I had never heard of Cuban ballet dancer Alicia Alonso until I read this play. She was a fascinating woman with a fascinating life! This play does an excellent job explaining her formidable will and serious eye problems and sheer tenacity to dance. Good narrative structure. I would love to see this play produced.

J. Lois Diamond's ALICIA isn't just a biographical tale of acclaimed ballet dancer Alicia Alonso's overcoming her loss of eyesight, but an epic setting her career against changing dance pedagogy from authoritarian to empowering, Cold War politics in which cultural exchanges were a form of soft-diplomacy, and how Alonso herself used her close relationship with the Castro regime in Cuba to advance her career on the international stage. A fascinating portrait of an artist and her times.