Intro and news article (original) (raw)

Hi,

I just joined. I'm really into Barbarito Torres, original lute (laud) player of the Buena Vista Social Club. I thought I'd post this article for those of you who are interested. I'm not sure for how long the article will be viewable so I've put it behind a cut in its entirety too

Cuban Performers Ask For Asylum At Federal Court In Las Vegas
Posted: Wed., Nov. 17, 2004 06:07:59 AM MST
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Members of a Cuban dance troupe asked for asylum Monday in the United States because the show's creator said they'd be forced to quit performing if they returned to Havana.

"They were forced into this," Nicole "N.D" Durr said of the 43 dancers, singers, musicians and stagehands from her "Havana Night Club" show that has been performing in Las Vegas. "We will continue our work."

Arriving as a group by bus for a news conference at the U.S. District Court in Las Vegas where they submitted asylum paperwork, the performers responded in unison when Durr asked them in Spanish if they were frightened by the action they were taking.

"No!" they said.

"This decision is not taken lightly," Durr said.

There was no immediate reaction from the communist government of Cuban leader Fidel Castro to the group's asylum request or to Durr's comments on the performers' futures if they returned to the island nation.

Earlier, Culture Minister Abel Prieto told The Associated Press that there was a problem in the group's break from its previous working relationship with the Cuban writers and artists union known as UNEAC.

"A kind of ghost has appeared. ... an imaginary creature," Abel said, referring to the group's characterization of itself as fully divorced from the government.

Asylum applicants usually receive a response in less than two months, said Marie Sebrechts, regional spokeswoman for the federal Citizenship and Immigration Services, in Laguna Niguel, Calif.

Seven other cast members now in Germany received U.S. asylum Monday and were expected to arrive in Las Vegas on Tuesday, said Pamela Falk, a City University of New York professor advising the troupe. At least two cast members have decided to return to Cuba, and one was wavering, Falk said.

The defections were pragmatic rather than political, Durr said.

"How can you tell a 19-year-old dancer who's brilliant not to dance?" she said. "They were told, 'When you come back, your life as an artist will change.'"

Joe Garcia, an official with the Cuban American National Foundation, an advocacy group in Miami, called the mass defection one of the largest in Cuban-American history.

"Cuba had sort of warned these guys. They basically broke up the group," he said.

Durr, who said the troupe has been like a family since it was founded six years ago, said the application for asylum had roots in her banishment last summer from Cuba.

"This is a brave and bold action by my young artists," she told The Associated Press. "It's done with sorrow, leaving family behind, but with resolve."

Ariel Machado, head of production for the troupe, said the performers were worried about family members and friends remaining in Cuba.

"We're not really worried for us," Machado said. "The difficulty is for the people we leave behind, for our families."

"Its a struggle that we were born into," he said.

Relations between the U.S. and Cuba have been strained for more than four decades.

Mass defections from Cuba were common during the 1990s, when the island nation struggled to regain its economic footing after losing massive aid from the former Soviet Union.

In 1993, about 34 Cuban athletes defected to Puerto Rico during a sports tournament, 16 members of a traveling dance troupe remained in Spain and 10 members of a Havana university choir performing in Venezuela stayed behind. That same year, Cuban singer Albita Rodriguez and her band defected to the United States.

Perhaps the best-known Cuban defector in the late 1990s was baseball pitcher Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez, who defected in 1997, established residency in Costa Rica and signed a free-agent contract with the New York Yankees in 1998.

In the fall of 2003, five dancers with the National Ballet of Cuba slipped away during a U.S. tour, then asked for asylum. Director Alicia Alonso in Cuba called the defections "painful."

The latest asylum request comes with the "Havana Night Club" show set to reopen Monday at the Stardust Resort and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip and run until Jan. 11.

The show's initial opening, scheduled for July 31, was postponed by bureaucratic red tape that delayed the troupe's arrival in Las Vegas.

Durr and show promoters complained that the troupe had made 16 trips abroad and should be allowed to travel to the U.S.

Cuban authorities said the United States would not grant visas. But after the U.S. approved visas, cast members began to enter the country. Performances ran Aug. 21 to Sept. 6 - two weeks of a six-week engagement, plus a short encore last month.

p.s. Hablo español también y estoy interesado en hacer amigos afuera de los EU. Platiquemos.