The Camagüey Ballet is a dream come true for the dancer Elda María Almengor, it has been her growth and her improvement, while on that wonderful group she had her daughter, she met her husband, but about that family linked to dance, we will talk in another article, because her daughter is also a dancer and her husband is the one who designs the shoes. Let’s say that the pointe ones bind them through an invisible ribbon called dance.

Elda’s beginnings

Achieving 30 years of artistic life is not easy, especially for a dancer, because due to the physical demands of each preparation and show, the years on stage are usually short-lived.

However, teaching can be another way of dancing, as Elda sees it, who started out a little girl in this artistic manifestation and upon graduation they sent her to do social service in Santiago de Cuba, dissatisfied with her remoteness from the land she loves and from his beloved group, she managed to return in a year and while she was processing her incorporation to the Camagüey company, his daughter, Rosa María, was born, who inherited the genes with an aptitude for dance and follows in her mother’s footsteps.

She danced for 25 years, since 2015 she teaches how to do it, for that it is discussed between the Camagüey Ballet Company itself and its young dancers, which is the Vicentina de la Torres Academy.

She says that she retired from the scene, but she did not retire, because all the successes and joys that she conquered with her determination to the public, deserved, among other distinctions, that of the Mirror of Patience and medals in various scenarios. She also had the opportunity in 2011 to dance at the Cairo Opera House, an experience that lasted only one year, but was very educational.

As a mom

She is very demanding in each presentation of Rosa María, she teaches her everything she knows in techniques and knowledge, when she has not been able to see her dance on tours of other countries, she sends her suggestions and good wishes from her. She confesses that she feels more nervous when her daughter dances than she when she had to perform in a theater.

Part of her professional sacrifices have been not being with her in all her childhood activities, her grandparents were her arms of support so that her career could take off, but she regrets having missed the graduation of her daughter, for being in Egypt. She is very proud of what she has accomplished on her own, because even though she is the daughter of dancers she has her own talent.

Sharing dances together are one of the experiences they have enjoyed the most, the gallery of their house perpetuates the images of those happy days in black and white, so it was with the Flower Festival in Genzano, Paquita, Swan Lake, Don Quixote and in the case of Giselle she played the character of the mother, which she has repeated several times for other young dancers, who start in that classic work.

 As a teacher

She is very happy teaching, she says he is very demanding with her disciples, but they repay her with affection and the things they achieve in each work, which generates a lot of stress because she takes teaching very seriously and what they show in the performances are their dance too.

She is moved by the gratitude of the graduates, in them is the future of the Camagüey Ballet, which celebrates its anniversary and which for Elda represents her life, which she follows on pointe shoes, dancing from the classrooms.

Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García