the next big influence on your life and work is travel. when did you first leave cuba? when was the first time you left the country? i think the first country i visited was mexico. that must have been 1989 or something, and then i went to italy. immediately after two months, and while i was in italy, i prepared for the lausanne competition, a major contest, 127 competitors at the time. and i was the last, number 127. so i went there to the competition and obviously at that time i did not believe in my talent myself. my teacher believed in it more than i did and decided that
and say you did very well, that s what matters. and that took a lot of the pressure in that contest, always having her say, just dance and enjoy and just you do not need to win. just enjoy. first time in europe, you re 16 and at a major competition. what do you remember of that day and what did you dance? in lausanne, don quixote, which was one of my most important roles, don quixote. it was a solo, the third act that everybody knows because baryshnikov and nureyev, they made all that famous. so i did that. with quite a level of complexity for a 16 year old boy, no. the scissor steps at the time was quite new and advanced for a 16 year old kid,