Significant improvements in traditional repertory, unique and diverse choreographic advances, established works that were recognized routinely as visionary achievements in Cuban contemporary choreography.

Significant improvements in traditional repertory, unique and diverse choreographic advances, have established works that are recognized routinely as visionary achievements in the contemporary choreography.

[3] Cuba funds a country-wide teaching organization called the National School of Ballet, directed by Ramona de Saá.

Boys have been encouraged to audition as much as girls, and over the years this has become an easier task now that parents realize the financially rewarding future that awaits good dancers.

Furthermore, performances such as La Fille Mall Gardee occurred at the Opera Prague and The Sleeping Beauty at the Teatro alla Scala of Milan.

Important awards, such as the Grand Prix of the Ville of Paris and the Order Félix Varela, of the Republic of Cuba, joined with frequent acclamation of specialized critics.

[8] On the occasion of its 50th anniversary Fidel Castro awarded the ballet and Alicia Alonso its highest civil decoration, the Lazaro Pena Order.

In 2004 Jose Manuel Carreno was the first Cuban to win the Dance Magazine award for contributions to ballet since the prima ballerina assoluta Alicia Alonso did in 1958.

The American tour's brilliance was overshadowed by the defection of five lesser known dancers which two of them, Cervilio Amador and Gema Diaz, both of 20, were taken up as soloists by the Cincinnati Ballet.

Octavio Martin, a principal dancer, and his wife, Yaima Franco, who ranked slightly above the corps de ballet, left after a performance at a festival in Villahermosa, Mexico, on October 30, 2005.

[14] Rolando defected in 2005, a year after his brother Daniel Sarabia,[14] also a former dancer with Cuban National Ballet, entered the United States via Mexico.

After giving her last performance in 1993 at the age of 72, Prima Ballerina Alicia Alonso continued to organize the Nutcrackers with great success at the Valencia main theater, as a part of the Spanish tour.

The development of Cuban artists has been a goal of the government under Fidel Castro, which continues to provide state support for dance education and performance.

[19] Besides Cuba's National Ballet's intensive work, it develops important educational activity, targeting its dancers' artistic-technical training or improvement.

The Cuban dance form is an expression of the Ibero-America, Caribbean roots, and classical styles that are sustained or enhanced by common or similar ethnic and cultural antecedents.

The program summons professionals and students of advanced levels of both sexes, to its unique courses on technique, style and the interpretative concepts of the Cuban School of Ballet.