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.