Among the many bands featured at this year’s Marin County Fair was Tiempo Libre, from Cuba via Miami. I was really looking forward to some smooth Latin rhythms (I'm a would-be conga player), so I headed on down to the Civic Center with my wife, Pat. We arrived just as Tiempo Libre were finishing their first set, so we wandered off in search of a chocolate frozen yogurt and an espresso milkshake from the Ben & Jerry’s truck.
As soon as the band started playing again, a dozen or so dancers hurried in front of the bandstand and started doing their salsa moves. I loved watching them and wished Pat and I had had more time to continue our own salsa lessons from a few years back. But after a couple of songs, we got up anyway and faked it as best we could. I was just getting into a groove, when I heard my name called out over the music. A tall, handsome black man came over and wanted to know if I had worked on a production of West Side Story up on Mount Tamalpais. When I said, yes, he shouted over the throbbing beat that his name was Ariel Cisneros and he had been in the show. Then he gave me a big bear hug.
Whoa! That was eleven years ago. I was amazed that he recognized me and that he was still so enthusiastic about the experience. As I continued to dance, buoyed by this unexpected surprise, I couldn’t help thinking about that production of West Side Story. It was one of my favorite shows to work on, and provided me with one of my favorite theatre stories.
The year was 1999. The Mountain Play Association had contracted with eight dancers from the Ballet Nacional de Cuba to play the members of Sharks gang. I was hired to choreograph the stage fights. In this updated version, set in present day New York City, I had devised a “rumble” that involved butterfly knives, pipes, chains, two-by-fours, aluminum baseball bats, skateboards and, of course, fists.
Everyone was enthusiastic, as they almost always are when theatrical mayhem is in the air. And for the Cuban dancers, especially, this was something doubly new. New for me was how to choreograph actors from another country. But, between their smattering of English, my pitiable Spanish, and a whole lot of body language, we got along just fine.
The first phrase I learned was “despacio,” which means “slowly.” For those who only see the finished product, stage fight choreography is actually rehearsed extremely slowly at first, so that the timing of each move gets set firmly into the performers’ muscle memories. It is only as opening night approaches that the speed is allowed to slowly approximate “normal” speed. Unfortunately, with stage fighting, the adrenalin wants to kick in earlier than that, thus the constant reminder to take things “despacio.”
The other key phrase was “ojos a ojos,” literally, “eyes to eyes.” With so many potentially dangerous objects flying around— including body parts—it’s critical for stage combatants to visually “check in” with their partners prior to each move. It’s astounding, but in a split second of eye-to-eye contact you can actually tell the mental and physical state of your fellow combatant. Sometimes a choreographed fall will temporarily scramble his or her thought processes, or it is not uncommon for a subsequent move or sequence to be forgotten completely. Without “ojos a ojos,” a punch might be thrown without a proper reaction—such as ducking—from the recipient.
Rehearsals in the Park School auditorium were a gas, and everyone got used to my constant side-coaching during run-throughs, yelling out “despacio” and “ojos a ojos” loudly and at regular intervals.
Finally, as the weather improved, we moved the play up to the Cushing Amphitheatre on Mount Tam—a Depression-era Works Progress Administration project that seats over three thousand on natural stone tiers. Rehearsing outdoors adds its own challenges and distractions, so I was relegated to using a microphone during our run-throughs, which were now nearing performance speed.
Our final dress rehearsal found me once again at the microphone. No longer in “despacio mode,” I watched the chaos unfold on the stage below. Everything was going swimmingly, but I felt the need for one last reminder. But instead of “ojos a ojos,” for some inexplicable reason, my side-coaching instructions came out “Osos a osos!”
Though the casual bystander might not have noticed, the effect, to my eyes, was immediate and unmistakable. Eight pairs of Cuban “ojos” quickly turned in my direction – some in mid-punch and others in mid-swing. Time seemed to slow down for a brief second and it was as if I could read their minds telepathically: What the hell does he mean? “Osos a osos”? “Bears to bears”? Are there bears in the amphitheatre?
But thorough training is a wonderful thing. Without skipping a Cuban beat, everyone launched back into the brawl, and only later did I catch quite a bit good-natured teasing for confusing the heck out of the actors at a critical point in the fight, even if only momentarily.
I loved working on that show. I was even secretly a bit tickled when the reviewer from the Marin Independent Journal mentioned the fight choreography ahead of the director in his write-up. And I guess my enthusiasm must have laid down some good karmic pathways as well. For here I was, more than a decade later, swaying to the pounding rhythms of Tiempo Libre, watching Ariel up on stage performing a wild conga with the band leader, and still smiling from a welcome blast from past.
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