Malpaso Dance Company: Creating The Essence of Us

It is an understatement to say that life in Havana is difficult. An energy crisis brings frequent blackouts. Communications are unreliable. Transportation is a constant challenge. Food insecurity and intense heat compound the pressures of daily life. Artists, like many Cubans, have been leaving the island in large numbers.

But Malpaso Dance Company has stayed.

For 14 years, the Havana-based company has continued to create work of striking beauty and power, building an international reputation while making a home for dancers and choreographers in Cuba.

Co-founded by Fernando Sáez, Malpaso has grown into a company of international repute, collaborating with leading choreographers including Aszure Barton, Ronald K. Brown, Ephrat Asherie, Trey McIntyre, Sonya Tayeh, Ohad Naharin, and many others.

This fall, Malpaso was scheduled to travel from Cuba to New York for the opening of 92NY’s Harkness Mainstage Series, a season exploring the theme Home: Departure and Return. The company was to give the world premiere of a new work by acclaimed Cuban American choreographer Pedro Ruiz.

Visa barriers made the trip impossible.

Rather than abandon the project, 92NY found another way to bring Malpaso and its dancers to New York audiences. The organization commissioned Nel Shelby Productions to travel to Havana and document Ruiz’s return to Cuba and the creation of the new work inside Malpaso’s studios.

The result is The Essence of Us, a new documentary premiering at 92NY on Saturday, September 19. The film will be presented alongside a live performance by Ballet Hispánico New York, featuring works by Pedro Ruiz, Ballet Hispánico New York Artistic Director Eduardo Vilaro, and Marienela Boan.

“The Essence of Us is inspired by the notion and belief that, despite our differences and the conflicts that can tear us apart, the essence of who we truly are is our humanity, the force that can unite us all.”—Pedro Ruiz

---

Filmed entirely in Spanish with English subtitles, The Essence of Us follows Ruiz as he returns to Havana, Cuba to create a new work with Malpaso.

What begins as the story of a choreographic collaboration becomes something larger: an intimate portrait of artists determined to keep creating amid the realities of contemporary life in Cuba. For the dancers of Malpaso, dance is more than an art form. It is a means of preserving identity, purpose, community, and a connection to the world beyond the island.

For Ruiz, the circumstances surrounding the project changed the meaning of the work itself.

“The piece was born the moment I understood that this wasn’t simply another commission,” said Pedro Ruiz. “It was an opportunity to honor the humanity of artists living through extraordinary circumstances. I wanted to create something that wasn’t about politics or borders, but about what remains when everything else is stripped away: our memories, our love, our resilience, and our longing for connection. Learning that the dancers would not be able to stand onstage for the premiere was heartbreaking. Dance is meant to be shared in the same breath, in the same space. Yet somehow that absence became part of the choreography itself. Their physical absence reminds us that art continues to transcend the barriers that people cannot.”

Through Malpaso, Fernando Sáez has created something increasingly difficult to sustain in Cuba: a home for dancers and choreographers to work, experiment, collaborate, and belong.

At a moment when so many Cubans, including artists, are leaving the island, Sáez sees the decision to remain not as passivity, but as an active commitment.

“It means reaffirming, every single day, that freedom and creation are acts of will born of existential necessity,” said Sáez. “It is also about building an oasis from scratch—an organization where young people can exercise a sense of belonging, something largely nonexistent in our society. When millions of Cubans leave, including so many artists, staying could easily be misread as resignation, but for me it is quite the opposite. It is an active, deliberate choice to practice freedom through adversity, not in spite of it. Ultimately, holding this ground for steady collaborations—where we expand our vision, challenge clichés and assumptions, and push beyond accumulated solutions—is not only about defiance; it is about giving uncertainty and hopelessness a meaningful purpose.”

The dancers who fill that studio choose to be there. They are artists of the highest order, trained in a tradition Sáez describes as deep as the island itself: “Cuba is a dancing island … the foundations, the deep legacy of generations, endure.”

Pedro Ruiz worked alongside the dancers through conditions that would have stopped most rehearsals before they began. What impressed him was not simply their technical ability, but the seriousness with which they continued to show up for the work.

“I want audiences to know that every movement they see was earned. These dancers rehearse with extraordinary discipline under circumstances most artists would never have to imagine. They bring remarkable technical excellence, but even more importantly, they bring generosity, courage, humor, and an unwavering belief that dance matters. Their presence extends far beyond the stage.”

Power could disappear. Communication could be cut off. Transportation could become difficult. Plans could change from one day to the next. Ruiz watched the dancers respond by returning to the studio and beginning again.

“Every rehearsal required flexibility. There were power outages. Transportation challenges, Limited communication. Daily uncertainties that most artists never have to think about. And yet every morning the dancers arrived ready to work. Their discipline and generosity reminded me that creativity doesn’t depend on comfort. Sometimes adversity reveals an even deeper commitment to art.”

For Daile Carrazana, Malpaso co-founder, Associate Artistic Director and dancer, that commitment is difficult to separate from the act of dancing itself.

“When things are falling apart and crumbling down around us, we feel like a sense of commitment. Somehow, something happens in our heart, in our soul, that won’t let us stay away from our work and doing what we’ve always done – without water, without electricity, in the heat.”

Her fellow Malpaso dancer Esteban Aguila puts it more simply: “Where there is a will, there is a way.”

The Essence of Us captures that will: dancers continuing to rehearse, a choreographer returning to the country where his own artistic life began, and a company holding onto the space it has built in Havana.

The dancers cannot cross the border to be with you on September 19.

But for one night, you can enter their world.

The Essence of Us: A Cuban Story

A world premiere film directed by Nel Shelby

Featuring Malpaso Dance Company and Pedro Ruiz

With a live performance by Ballet Hispánico New York

Saturday, September 19, at 7pm

Reserve your seats here.