Danza
Interior
Osvaldo García · Ogarc
"The idea arose from Alicia Alonso's 92nd birthday and my admiration for an artist whose vitality has been more than present throughout her life."
The Inner Dance of Osvaldo García
Lyricism in motion. The sensuality of a dancer. The delicacy of each gesture. Many readings can be absorbed by those who encounter Danza Interior — an exhibition that reveres the world of ballet, and particularly the figure of Alicia Alonso.
Inaugurated at the Casa de la Obra Pía, in the Historic Center of Havana, the exhibition invites the fullest possible tasting — visually and spiritually — translating into paint unique moments of dance art. Moments we enjoy perfectly on stage, now returned to us in color, in depth, in the spell of artistic truth.
Dancers emerge from the oil as if caught mid-action, invading each work with rigorous detail. They emerge from the wind, from vegetation, from the moon. They become swans, transmuted into another self — women of flesh and blood who give all their grace.
"Painting the dance is something similar to reaching the sky with a wide lens directed, this time, to the skin inside the human being. Because what we see on stage cannot be reached with the naked eye — it is danced with the heart and soul, which leave trails in their wake. That is what Osvaldo García (Ogarc) collects in his show: shreds of the spirit, breaths of a being transformed into something unreal that travels space in search of a place close to the dimension of the hidden — of what we know exists and cannot catch."
— Toni Piñera, art critic · Catalog essay for Danza InteriorThe ethereal. The unattainable. That fleeting moment never repeated in a gesture — this is what the artist has grasped in his proposal. The theme of ballet attracted him precisely because of the line the dancer carries in her body and adopts in her positions:
"That fascinates me, because my line is very sinuous — it plays with nooks and crannies and is always in motion, carrying strength and vitality. All of that has a lot to do with dancing."
What characterizes Danza Interior above all else is color. García was interested in giving prestige to Alicia's work — and so he refused to work in grays or overtly graphic themes: "I wanted to do something more festive, more elegant." But he did not abandon his instinct toward the abstract: "My figuration starts from the human being, looking for the abstract and vice versa. It is a journey in the way that has always characterized me."
This theme — the spirit of dance, the line between the body and the invisible — will continue to travel through Osvaldo García's future work. Danza Interior was not a conclusion. It was a beginning.
Works from the Exhibition
