[Leica] Dancing through Havana --- Part 1 (long!)

[TTAbrahams@aol.com]

The reason for a week in old Havana was simple. My friend Chris is a jazz and 
music scene photographer here in Vancouver and has covered some of the "Buena 
Vista Social Club's" performances both here and in Cuba. He decided that 
having to face a grey and dismal December in Vancouver the alternative of a 
month in Havana was a better choice. He extended an offer for me to come 
along for a week of shooting and wandering around the city of Hemingway and 
old American cars from the fifties. Well, there are not many things that are 
easier for Canadians to do than for Americans, but going to Cuba is one of 
them. Direct flights from Vancouver to the Varadero Airport and no visa 
problems either.
 Cuba is still a communist country and that is distinctly reinforced at the 
airport arrivals. I have no idea why totalitarian states (it doesn't matter 
weather they are left or right wing either) makes such a fuss at their 
borders, but it must be a bit of a power-game. I travel light, a small 
flight-bag and a shoulder bag for the cameras, but the fact that my bag only 
held a couple of changes of shirts, socks and underwear and three plastic 
bags filled with 75 rolls of Tri-X had them baffled. "Journalista? 
Photografico?" I begged off these titles as that means Official Documents and 
other government involvement and proclaimed myself being a designer of 
cameras and just happened to have that much film for testing some prototypes! 
I was saved by the arrival of a Canadian school band with lots of instrument 
cases and bags of duty-free stuff and that shifted the Immigration agents' 
interest to them. My friend Chris had bigger bags and about 125 rolls of film 
(but then he is staying for a month) and it took him an hour to get out! Once 
released into the warm, tropical air of Cuba, lightly spiced by diesel-fuel 
fumes from a variety of buses and cars, we headed to Matanzas (a $ 20 
cab-ride) and the Hershey-Train. This is a small electrical train that takes 
you into Havana, slowly and accompanied by a lot off huffing and puffing 
noise from the air-compressor under the floor. Before 1959, the Hershey 
Company operated large cocoa plantations along the coast of Cuba and there 
was a risk of fires from the steam engines normally used for transporting the 
crop. In 1946, the company imported some Brill-cars from Portugal and as 
these are electrical, there was less chance for sparks. The air-compressor 
provides power to overcome the starting inertia and it does make the train 
sound like an elderly gentleman with a breathing disorder. It is not an 
express train, it takes a good 3 hours to cover the 70 km (45 miles) from 
Matanzas to Havana harbour. Oh, they even have a town named "Hershey" in 
Cuba, midway between the two terminals.
 Chris has been to Havana several times in the last year and established 
connections with the locals, thus we stayed with a couple of his friends in 
the old section of Havana. Officially this is frowned upon, unless you have 
the proper paper work, but unofficially it is accepted. Price seems to be 
around $10-15/night including breakfast (and in our case also dinners). The 
standard of the accommodations can vary, in our case it was in an old 
apartment in a somewhat dilapidated colonial style building. One of the 
idiosyncrasies of Havana is that you don't have to pay for water supplied, 
but you are charged for the drainage of water used. This gives the locals a 
free reign to come up with solutions to drainage, all geared towards not 
having to pay for it! In "our" building" this involved having the sinks drain 
into buckets and when these were at overflowing level, you just dumped it 
into the courtyard where it mysteriously disappeared! 
 Havana has a lot of charm. It looks somewhat like a stage set for a Russian 
play. Grand old buildings slowly crumbling away, old cars wheezing and fuming 
along the streets and you keep expecting "Commissars" in polished boots 
around every corner. The buildings are crumbling, the cars are fuming, 
although there is a fair sprinkling of newer cars too, Hyndai's, Toyota's, 
and Lada (Russian built Fiats) and I did not see a single Commissar during my 
7 days there. In fact, I had very little connections with officials during 
the whole stay (which suits me fine!).
 This being the LUG, there has to be a LUG connection. In the last 3-4 years, 
I have encountered LUGgers everywhere I go, but I did not anticipate running 
into any in Havana. First day, midmorning we are wandering around looking at 
the restored part of Havana. Across the street from us is a couple, she is 
sporting a Nikkormat with a 200/4 and he is holding a M3 with a 50/2,8 on it. 
Of course we stop and exchange the LUG greeting "M2's with 35 and 50" and 
Chris " M3 with 50 and M6 with 35". Our Leica friend, Hong-I Wu is a 
Taiwanese born but now living in Buenos Aires medical student, who is in 
Havana with a group of professional Tango dancers! Once the introductions are 
done, we made a date for next day at "Casa di Tango di Cuba" and part our 
ways.
 Next day we arrived at Casa Di Tango and met the rest of the dancers. We 
decided that we should do some pictures of this occasion and troupe down to 
the harbour front. The Tanguardia bus was parked there and the dancers use it 
as a changing room and appear 15 minutes later, dressed to kill! Several 
Cuban's on bicycles were in great danger of falling into the harbour as the 
eight women in tight dresses descended from the bus! For those of us who 
occasionally get the opportunity to shoot professional dancers, there are no 
better subjects. They are not shy (Hey, if you have seen Argentinean Tango 
being danced, being shy and introverted is not something that qualifies you!) 
and they have a gymnasts control of body and limbs. Having started out as a 
group-shot of the troupe, it quickly grew to an impromptu 3-hour session. 
Using the classic old buildings as a backdrop we shot the dancers on the 
streets, on the steps to a church, on an impromptu stage in one of the 
squares in Central Havana and on the drawbridge to the old fortress that 
guards the entrance to Havana's harbour. At one time, this was a place that 
instilled fear in the Cubans. In the 1899-1900 the rebels were executed here, 
and in the Revolution of 1959 it was the headquarters for Che's troops.
Tom A
                      Continues in " Dancing through Havana" --- Part 2