Lazaro Benitez
Qué Bolero o En tiempo de inseguridad nacional 

What does it mean to belong to a people? How do the movements which inhabit us tell us where we come from? The piece explores, with strength, precision and sequins, the modern forms of cultural colonialism.

Lazaro Benitez, Luis Carricaburu and Ricardo Sarmiento were born in Cuba in the 90s, between the fall of socialism and the advent of a serious economic crisis. Like many in their generation, they left Cuba and moved to Europe. In Qué Bolero o En tiempo de inseguridad nacional, the three performers summon the movements that are etched in them, those of popular Cuban culture: congas, Carnivals and cabarets … To a cobbled-together set which tells us of precariousness and migration, of many stories of exile and uprising, they oppose an iconic work of Western culture : the famous orchestral Boléro by Maurice Ravel. The three artists step inside this Boléro “like a tropical hurricane”: a playful, sly peek at the “national body”, which finds all its meaning in cultural mixing.