Interview Part IV: Anara Frank on Staying Connected

The following is the final installment of Anara Frank's journey as the program coordinator of trips to Cuba. She talks here about the feedback she's received and the opportunities she's had to expand her programming to the Dominican Republic while also staying connected to Cuba in the midst of the global pandemic.

Q: What is some of the feedback you've received from both Cuban hosts and American travelers regarding your trip programing? Any that stood out to you over the years?

A: So starting with the Cuban dancers: I think that there are two really strong methodologies for dance teaching in Cuba and for dance and art programming in general. There's the line of high-level arts where people elected to be in an arts school and people who show extraordinary capability and talent, people who are being coached to develop that talent to the highest level, and that type of arts coaching is very strict and very focused on exactly how to be the best you can be. You're being given a chance to develop and represent the country at no cost, and there is a high level of expectation for your performance. Then there's also the community kind of dance and music programming, which is like "we are here for everyone." Everyone is here to have fun, everybody is here to learn. Whatever way we learn is fine, whatever way you do the steps is fine. If you look awkward it's fine, if you look beautiful it's fine, if your voice is off-key it's fine, if it's perfect it's fine, and it's all great! We're all just here loving it. It's dance! It's music! And there is a direction in that line that's all just fun and let's do it! You know? Yes, there's also the informal line, if you will, of just kind of picking things up from friends as they go along. Like a lot of people say, "I never learned salsa, I just knew how to do it. I would watch people," and they tried, you know? So I guess that would be the informal line. So there's three possible paths, but the two that are considered art because they're very divergent.

So what I would, as a dance instructor in the United States, who was bringing my students, had to look for how to develop [was] another type of instruction because I knew that most of my travelers were not coming to be the Olympic champion of Cuban salsa. But at the same time, they weren't coming to play and be like "Everything's wonderful! Whatever you're doing is wonderful, everything's great!" No, they wanted to learn. So figuring out how to create that space where you could be in the middle, where you could have fun but also be advancing and learning at the same time I think was surprising to the artists we were working with because they had come from one line or the other. We had both, but there was this strange place in the middle where people were learning a lot, but not being made to feel bad, I guess. It was like trying to find that little balance. So I think that was really surprising. I also know there is a lot of competition in Cuba amongst artists because there are only so many spots and everyone has good education in the arts. So we were looking for how to work as a collective that was non-competitive. No one was trying to take your role in the show, right? In Cuba, there are only a few spots for teachers, only a few spots for top performers, and so many amazing artists that it's really a fight to have your spot. With us, it was like we're building a collective, we're building a family. There's no fight for your spot, let's just keep having more students, and we all have a spot, we all work together. So I think those two things were very surprising and also some of the things that made them happiest. They had over time become such skilled instructors for people who weren't coming out of the Cuban system; [it] was something really important to them. They learned how to work with people from around the world and how to give feedback in such a way that their students, who were not Cuban, were developing. There was a saying, when I was going there, when I was younger, "Don't worry about it, you're not Cuban! You're never gonna dance like us, it's not in your blood." But then what do you do with that? Why do you even bother? So that's not useful instruction. So getting over that and getting to the point where we believed that it was actually possible to teach someone how to do something, and to teach them to do it very well, with positive energy, and helping them feel reinforced, and also that it was possible for us to be such a strong group that we didn't have to compete against each other, that there was something for everybody. So I feel like those are the two best feedback items that I think everyone has felt and that it has been very moving to watch as the group becomes more and more united based on those things. Those are the best things for me from the Cuban side, and then possibly what we were talking about earlier, that overcoming of prejudices, that what people imagined versus seeing the great diversity of what Americans actually are, and the ability for Americans and Cubans to build really beautiful relationships instead of the challenged relationships we tended to have. So I think those are the strong feedback items from the Cuban side.

From the side of the travelers: and I say travelers because not all travelers have been American. There have been many from all parts of the world. Some have been living in the United States with greencards, but also travelers from other countries who come with us on the trips, or who are born to other naturalized citizens. So there has been plenty of diversity of travelers. And I think some of the best feedback is, something that unites what I said earlier, the bonds that were able to be created in such a short period of time; the incredible experience of being totally surrounded by dance, music, and art in a way that you're not necessarily used to experiencing in our daily lives; being surrounded by a feeling of love and acceptance and appreciation regardless of what level you were at, regardless of how you looked that maybe people don't have in their daily lives, but many people were getting as part of being in our group when they were on the trip. A lot of love, support, and acceptance.

And I think the best part is what those things have meant for someone coming back afterwards. Like a lot of people have had the trip be kind of the spark for some other life changes. The spark for changing their physical health situation; the spark for making the decision to change into a different career path; the spark for being ready to take on relationship situations. So something about that leaving daily life and being in this environment of love, respect, acceptance, dance, music, art 24/7 kind of gives you a new outlook, maybe? A new way to look at things, and then be able to bring that back into your daily life and say, "OK, here is a change I want to make. I would like to change my daily life by bringing more positive energy, love, and acceptance to the people around me." Maybe they hadn't known how to do that before. Or I would like to change my daily life by figuring out how to have dance, music, and art around me every day, and maybe I hadn't done that before. And maybe I want to change my daily life by wondering and seeing what other types of career paths are available to me that have more meaning for me than the thing I'm doing right now that pays the bills. So I think those types of experiences create a spark for whatever is going to happen next. And so I think the best feedback that I am able to receive is the impact the trip made on my life is something really special. For me that's the best type of feedback that I could get.

Q: Given the restricted movement policies due to COVID-19, how are you maintaining that connection with your Cuban colleagues?

A: Actually, we kind of surprised ourselves! The start of COVID-19 was on the tails of extreme additional restrictions presented by the Trump administration for Cuba, many of which didn't hit the top of the news, but were being felt in drastic ways by my friends and family on the island. And so it was like we were already moving into a crisis. In the first few days of March, I think I got home on the 3rd from the Dominican Republic, and in the Dominican Republic I did not have a lot of contact with my friends and family in Cuba, and when I got home, we started to talk, and I was starting to realize the full impact of what was happening and how it was impacting them. Then, it was like the virus came, and then the realization that everything we did to earn money was being shut down. Not only were the people I really cared about were in crisis, but now I didn't even have a tool to help. I couldn't bring travelers, I couldn't even teach classes the way I normally would. There was a feeling that you know the people you love are suffering and the tools for how to help were being taken away. So there was a lot of internal struggle around that, and I felt really fortunate to be part a team that got good at solutioning [laughs] through all the years of challenges! And we said, "Wait! There is something we can do about this." Actually, for the past two weeks, we have been really actively working together to build what we had been working towards for the future, which is an online school and online learning community. It doesn't just provide instructional videos, but also virtual tours and experiences that people can connect to the feelings they had in Cuba but even from the United States. And that the artists are able to stay in touch with people even though [they] might not be able to see each other physically, we can be together in some way. And so we were developing this vision for this website, this online platform, and we had so many hours of videos and photos ready for it, and such a layout, and a plan, and a strategy for how to do it, but we had been going at baby steps as we did the trips, which is actually what's important.

We didn't think that the website would be a tool to support us for many years. We said we'll work on this slowly for the future. And, well, it's been the only thing we could do [laughs]! So very quickly the artists in all of the countries, in the Dominican Republic and Cuba, here in the United States and we also have partners in Canada that work with us, so the North American region, we have been working around the clock at taking all of the footage we have, editing it, getting it ready as instructional videos and other types of learning materials, and working on building the platform so that our supporters can have access to dance and music as much as they would like to access it from their own homes, and that they're able to support the artists financially that are creating all of these materials. And that everybody, by being able to stay connected, can have their spirits lifted. It's already started, and we haven't even launched the site yet. We should actually launch, hopefully tonight or tomorrow [April 1st or 2nd], it's very exciting. There have been so many technical issues. You know when you're working step by step you have specialists that help you work through the technical issues, but when you're just throwing stuff together overnight, you run into them and you don't always have help to get through to the other side. So you wait for it or you wait for someone to fix the problem that's not working, so that's the phase that we're in. But just the connection between us and the artists, I mean all of us are noticing the difference. We talk about how we've been feeling two weeks ago compared to how we feel now, and how we have a glimmer of hope in how we've been able to stay connected, and now we feel like there's a reason. Because you know we're all artists and when we're depressed, we're not necessarily dancing up a storm [laughs]. If we're creating instructional videos, and learning experiences, we are dancing. We are dancing a lot and we're sharing with someone who could really use it.

And so to be able to imagine that we have past travelers and students and people who have participated in our events who are going to feel better exercising with us and dancing with us and staying in touch with us, that's amazing and motivational! These people can help us make sure that the artists in the two countries we work with that don't necessarily have enough of a support system to assume that they'll be able to have food on the table have a weekly stipend. And so we can ensure that every week they have at least enough to buy food, at least enough to be able to make it to the next day, and for us that's hugely important. Figuring out that there's a way that we can do that using the internet while we're here in our homes has been incredible! We are actually giving thanks every day for the fact that we have this capability, that we have the technology, we have the internet service, that everything is possible. So I think, do we have a way to stay connected? Yes, more than ever, and we're working on making it better and better so that all of the people who've participated with us can feel that same thing that we're feeling about the joy of being reconnected again after so much time.

Q: As you continue to develop your programming for trips to DR, what have you learned from your experience building connections in Cuba that you can apply to this new adventure? And what might you do differently?

A: That's a great question. I'll start from the beginning. When people were travelling in Cuba with me who were from the DR asked me to do programs in the DR, my first reaction was, "How could I do a program in the DR?" The only reason I could do a program in Cuba is because of so much of my life [was] spent in Cuba. How would I possibly be able to do that in the DR? So as we would talk about it and they told me how important it was to them, how important they felt it would be for artists in the DR, how important it would be for overcoming prejudices that people had of the DR, I could see that there were experiences that I had lived through in building the programs with the artists in the community in Cuba that could be really useful to have it at least be as a starting model. I think it would be a big mistake to imagine that we can take a program from one country and plop it down in another. But we can say, let's use the model and see what we can develop that's working for the other. That's where we need to be. It's actually something that's gone both ways. It's really been special over the past, it's now, 3 years that artists from both sides have met each other and danced together and were able to exchange that way, but also they've been able to exchange music, dance steps, things like that, and also we have program tools from each country that are actually helping the other. So some system, some activity, some documentation chart invented in Cuba helps the DR program. And then the DR program invents a new type of system, program, or chart, or tool that then we take and it helps the Cuba program. So I feel like it's really been a great back and forth of how we can support each other to create best practices as quickly as possible by being able to compare with someone else. I think kind of like we do naturally here like as a teacher, I talk to other teachers and I say, "What are you doing? What's working? How can we exchange?" So I'm seeing that same type of thing as a program designer, we can utilize things we've learned from both, but without assuming that their two countries that speak the same language, that are islands in the same sea, that the programs are going to be the same.

The programs are very different in a lot of ways based on what's special and unique about each country that the artists would like to show the world, but they're very similar in that we are all on the same page, all of the artists from North America, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic about wanting to create a space where music and dance can connect us and bring a type of joy that we might not always be experiencing in our daily lives, but by creating that space we can. By creating that space and having that experience, we might actually be able to improve our daily lives, I think for everyone -- for the hosts and for the travelers. And so I think that that's the most important thing for all of us that we maintain throughout all of the trips is that there's really special connections, really deep cultural exchange, really deep conversations about reality in each country in order to help us overcome prejudices of being able to see the beauty in what is there, acknowledging what's negative that maybe people want to change, maybe learning also on how to withhold our own strong opinions about how another country should be, or how another person should choose to live, and being able to just learn, and be curious, and be accepting that maybe different cultures have different best practices. So sharing our best practices when possible, but not trying to impose what's good for us on someone else. I think that's been really important as we've begun building between the two countries, and I would say without a doubt, that whatever I have first built here in the United States, it was absolutely essential to have something as a model of the work I did building up a dance program here in order to be able to do what I did in Cuba. But it was equally important what Cuba was giving me and nourishing in me to be able to build the dance program. And I would say the same thing with me and what the United States programming has given me to be able to do in the DR, but also then adding Cuba into the mix. And then all three regions being able to help each other and support each other has just been incredible to be a part of it.

M: Thank you so so much for taking the time to tell me all about this. It will be really cool to see what feedback I get on what you say in terms of just the importance of having those kinds of global connections especially in a time when people might feel really isolated. So thank you, thank you so much. I really appreciate that you took the time.

A: You're welcome!

Interview Part III: Anara Frank on Cuban Impact

The following is a continuation of my interview with Anara Frank. Here she speaks about the way the Cuban culture of arts and dance became a necessary part of her life in the US and the ways she has grown from orchestrating the trips to Cuba. You can find the first two parts of this interview in previous blog posts if you want to get caught up on the bold and adventurous life of Anara Frank.

Q: What are some of the ways that you've brought Cuban dance culture back to the US?

A: I think I've had two main ways in life that I felt I could participate in being part of cultural exchange. The first phase happened when I came back from living there. I had experienced things from being part of a culture that is really passionate about social dancing and the way that social dancing was happening -- like the type of joy that it brought, the fact that you could dance with anyone of all ages, that it wasn't a romantic thing necessarily, you could dance with your uncle, you could dance with your neighbor -- it was just all about how humans connect. That feeling I didn't really know how to access in the United States. As a young person, it had become essential in the way that I lived and felt happy. There are aspects of dance culture, not necessarily salsa dance culture, but all the arts, every type of dance, music, and theater, were readily accessible in Cuba that it becomes an essential part of daily life that for me, who had not been as connected to the arts prior to living there, it felt like it became part of my necessity, my breathing. I had to have it around me. I hadn't realized that I had a lack of access until experiencing it 360. So the feeling of: everyone is welcome, free classes open to everyone, everyone has a place to sing, everyone has a place to dance, no matter how good you are you should just do it because it's so fun and so rewarding for you as an individual, and it's so spiritually uplifting, there should be art all the time everywhere around you, murals and walking down the street, music, and just everything, that I wanted to figure out a way to make a small part of that possible where I lived. And so the first piece for me was the welcoming and the accessibility for people who didn't think arts were for them or who didn't previously have access to the arts.

So my first company, non-profit organization, provided arts programming, both instructional and entertainment, for masses of people. We usually had about 2,000 students a year in ongoing classes, many many more if you count one-time events where we do a residency at a school. We might count 10,000 a year with that. And audiences regularly measured over 100,000 because we were always looking for places where lots of people would go who might not have that type of interaction and accessibility -- like festivals and parades. We didn't want to just be in a parade and be there by ourselves in our costumes. We were always looking for ways to get everyone around us to dance with us and join us. So that aspect of the accessibility and joy, that music and dance were part of everyday life at all times, is something I brought back with me almost as if it had become a part of me. I don't even know that I could say as a teenager that I was fully aware of how much Cuba had given me in that respect. All I knew was that I had been told it was my responsibility to be a cultural ambassador and it was my responsibility to find ways that people in the United States, young people in particular, could access music [and] dance.

For me, one of my arts was acrobatics, so some people don't consider that dance, but for me that was what I had done. [I was] a part of making that possible for as many young people as possible and eventually as many adults as possible, as many communities as possible. So I feel like that's the first piece of my connection [that] would have happened without the underlying ideas behind it. Did we do some Cuban styles of dance? Sure! But I didn't actually, at that time, feel safe or comfortable developing a program that was very Cuban-art-oriented. It was art oriented; it was community art oriented; it was social art oriented; it was community building. Dances that were popular with young people at the time [were] being put on a stage. It was making everything that we loved about social dancing to be art, and everything that we loved about art able to be social community building. I felt like that was my first goal. I didn't usually speak the word "Cuba" in connection with it. I do think that is a part of Cuban dance culture, but we were doing dances that mostly weren't Cuban. I led that organization for 15 years. I actually stopped because I had a tumor. I wasn't able to healthfully participate; I had it on my leg, so it had gotten worse and worse to the point where I got it removed, but I couldn't walk for a long time. So it didn't seem smart for me to stay in that type of leadership role in an organization that needed someone really strong and ready to go. So I stayed with that organization emotionally, but I left [physically].

Once I got better, the company decided that I should continue, myself, the aspect of Latin dance because it was less strenuous than all the other things we did at that company. We had a feeling in that company that it was a mix of hip hop, Latin dance, and gymnastics. Those were kind of our three pillars, and then many other styles of dance around that as many people came in and out and wanted to share that. It was all about sharing a cultural dance or a dance form that you were passionate about. The Latin dance program was the only one that didn't involve a very high level of physical intensity, and it was all that I could do; I could barely walk. It was determined that I could keep running a Latin dance program and see if I could get better while the instructor, who was then running the company, could continue doing gymnastics, hip hop, Capoeira, and all those other styles of dance that they had. That's how my second company was born, MetaMovements, as you know, with just focusing on the Latin dance aspect. It was basically the concept of what could I do walking or from a chair [laughs], and that's how I started. At that point, the political issues between Cuba and the US were not as intense as they had been before, also salsa was a lot more well-known. So I started focusing on being able to talk about Cuba because as a salsa instructor I really should be talking about Cuba. Cuba is the root that we need to study. Son and Rumba and many other styles gave birth to the salsa that we do today, so it became a more focal point of my instruction to talk about Cuba and Cuban influence in the history and dances we were doing because the dance were doing was salsa. I think that has stayed with me to the present day -- the really big focus of looking at the roots and history and how it led to the salsa we do and how we can connect the salsa we do to the way they do it in Cuba.

Cuba inspired me to build things like Salsa in the Park that I'm sure you have participated in. The community-based feel that I knew as reality there was what I was aching to bring into my reality here. And as travelers would go with me to Cuba, they would help me build what today is Salsa in the Park into something really strong. That was definitely, definitely inspired by my experiences in Cuba. We brought the concept of Timba lines where people were lining up and doing follow the leader in salsa parties, which was not something that was done here at all. Again, this is something that comes from Cuba that brought us so much joy and connection by being in the whole group and moving our bodies together, and really not minding looking silly because we were all in a big line just doing it for fun. Like all of those community-type-building-feeling I am thankful to Cuba in my life, and I keep trying to make it available, let's say, in other people's lives.

Q: Has anything about the trip surprised you?

A: I do think that there are always surprises in everything we do [laughs]. You know, especially in a place like Cuba that has a lot of challenges and shortages, there have been times when a program has been set up for months and then the light goes out or the water goes out in the place we were supposed to go, then we have to invent something else on the spot. We got used to saying for every program that we have a plan A, B, C, and D for every activity so it would move fluidly. So I think now, looking back, it has given me a capacity to solution, to think outside the box, be ready to improvise, be ready to try different things. So I think one of the most surprising things that came out of the trips is pushing me a lot as an individual to have personal growth in those areas and just to be ready to come up with some positive way to handle the challenge in front of me.

I think the other most surprising thing is the deepness of the relationships that have been built in a short period of time -- sometimes 4 days, sometimes a week -- but so much connection to the point where there were many many tears usually shed upon departure, and real hugs and friendships that mean the world to people occurring in such a short period of time that we wouldn't think usually of that being the way to develop a relationship. It's been beautiful to be a part of creating a space where that's possible where for this small moment in time we are no longer political adversaries, we are no longer people who the other is against, just creating this tiny space and hole in our existence to find each other through joy, through dancing, through music and all of a sudden something opens. We are able to connect in a way we couldn't before, we are able to interact in a way we couldn't before. There's almost no way to maintain strong prejudices when your prejudices are being challenged to that level that everything that you expected is different. I feel like those things have been surprising for me and also really motivational to keep doing this type of work.

M: I would say that was something I felt too from having gone on the trip is how quickly everyone connected and the fact we're still in touch almost a year later. It's really amazing.

SEE PREVIOUS POSTS FOR PARTS I AND II OF THIS INTERVIEW.
STAY TUNED FOR PART IV.