Unlike Cubans, Berliners Could See and Touch Their Wall, and Physically
Tear it Down
A stage divided by the Berlin Wall on one side--seeming so much like
Cuba today--a group of people who fight to buy, love and subsist.
Through the language of contemporary dance, we Habaneros could review
the history of the two Germanys united "like Siamese twins but
separated." The company Sasha Waltz & Guests performed last Friday in
the Gran Teatro's Garcia Lorca room and deployed a daring choreography
around the concrete structure that separated, for nearly forty years, a
single nation.
The dancers' use of phrases from our everyday life contributed to the
intense communication established with the audience. Nevertheless, I
think that the frayed and tense atmosphere was more than enough to make
us identify with what was happening on stage. The stubbornness of people
continuing the course of their lives despite the iron curtain separating
them was familiar to me. The tendency to forget the threatening shadow
and to take refuge in intimacy, dedicating oneself almost entirely to
survival. Twenty years after the fall of that arbitrary frontier, Cubans
keep on desiring the elimination of the impalpable boundaries that
surround us.
If at least our wall were like that one: of stone, concrete and barbed
wire, we could take a hammer or pick to demolish it. If we could touch
it and say, "Here it starts, here it ends," I am sure we would have
already torn it down. In our case, however, this barrier that separates
us from so many things is intangible and reinforced by the sea. If, for
one moment, this wall of controls and prohibitions that surrounds us
would materialize, it would be a pleasure to paint an enormous graffiti
on it. We could bring a ladder to look over to the other side--as the
dancers did on Friday night--or dig a tunnel in its hard concrete. If
none of that worked, we could take an abundant and challenging pee
against the cold structure.
Yoani's blog, Generation Y, can be read here in English translation.
Yoani Sanchez: Unlike Cubans, Berliners Could See and Touch Their Wall,
and Physically Tear it Down (2 June 2009)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yoani-sanchez/unlike-cubans-berliners-c_b_210415.html
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