Spanish Choreographer Laments 25 Years of Farewells in Cuba
Susana Pous and her observation of a ‘Desperate’ Cuban Youth
The artist asked the regime to generate “some changes so that the people of Cuba want to live in Cuba”
By Fabio Agrana (14ymedio/EFE)
HAVANA TIMES – Spanish choreographer Susana Pous first arrived in Havana, Cuba – her creative universe – 25 years ago (1999) and has felt at home ever since, although she does not hide her concern about the economic problems that are strangling the Island and leading to the “mass exodus” of a “desperate” youth.
In an interview with EFE, the director and choreographer of Mi Compañía said “The mass exodus has been so great in recent years that I have spent my whole life saying goodbye. Yes, and that worries me. Especially because a lot of the population has aged.” This weekend Mi Compañía closes the 13th edition of the Prisma-International Contemporary Dance Festival of Panama with its piece Infinito.
The situation causes concern for Pous (b. Barcelona, 1971) because these young people emigrating are “very desperate, with a lot of hopelessness because they don’t see a future.” However, she clarified that she has a different vision, but that “it is true that economically and in terms of development, Cuba is a bit suffocated.”
She therefore consideres it opportune for the people in charge “to realize a little that despite the real resistance” that the country is experiencing in the face of these difficulties and hardships, “some changes must be made so that the Cuban people want to live in Cuba, because the problem is that people want to leave.”
The Catalan director and choreographer believes that young people are the driving force of a country, but if they are not interested in transforming and decide to leave, “what will happen?”
“That is what I feel. I think there are many things to do, and we all want to transform things in the place where we live, but the only way is by being there. Changes are generated through actions,” she said.
Pous, whose creations are nourished by a “very big” imagination and the incorporation of visual arts and contemporary music in her productions, has in Cuba the reality and the present that not only serve as a basis for her work, but also for her activism in campaigns against machismo and violence on the Island.
She admits that when she arrived in Cuba, it crossed her mind that she “wouldn’t live there, even if she was crazy,” but after a year she was still there and has been living in Havana for 25 years now. “There is something that connected me and seduced me, something about the light and the smells that also connects me to my childhood in which perhaps I had a little less music and joy,” she admits.
“It’s not that I’m fascinated by Havana itself and that my works are from Havana, what happens is that since I speak very much from the present and I speak about what surrounds me and what inspires me is what is happening to me, if I’m in Havana, I’m in Havana, and that’s my reality and for me it’s very important,” she said.
Because of this connection and the recognition she has earned on the Island for the level and innovation of her choreographic creations, her image was used in a campaign against gender violence, in a country that, she said, “like everywhere else and in all of Latin America, there is a sexist society.” What surprised her was that when this topic was discussed, people “didn’t know what you were talking about, they didn’t know what gender violence was.”
Pous points out that this situation around machismo is something that is “still very accepted,” but “people are already starting to talk about it a little bit” and “Cuban society is opening up to, let’s say, raising awareness about this.”
In the island’s creative arts, Susana Pous is praised for her work for incorporating Cuba’s cultural memory into her choreographic projects, with notable works such as ¿Qué se puede esperar cuando se está esperando? [What Can You Expect When You’re Expecting?], Showroom, Welcome, MalSon, and Infinito.
Pous describes the latter, released in 2023, as “a journey of searching” into her interior at a time when she was talking a lot and was inspired by the reality she saw around her.
She recalled that she then realized that “when you begin to travel inward, you begin to understand that there are many things that make up the being that you are that have to do with your ancestors and previous generations.” In this, she noted, “there is a very important connection.” “And that is the original idea or the initial idea of ‘Infinito,’ the point of departure, the starting point,” she remarked.
Translated by Translating Cuba.
Read more from Cuba here on Havana Times.