- Title: GERMANY: POPULAR LATIN AMERICAN MUSICAL "PARADISE ROAD" PLANS TO TOUR EUROPE
- Date: 27th October 2001
- Summary: SMV (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) LUISE ENRIQUE SPENGLER "Yeah I'm a bit homesick but I like it here in Berlin, despite the cold! It's quite an experience for me to get to know a different culture especially in Europe because I don't know Europe at all. I actually feel at home now wherever I go."
- Embargoed: 11th November 2001 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: BERLIN, GERMANY
- Country: Germany
- Topics: Entertainment,General
- Reuters ID: LVA6Q0174A8NP1B89LSF19YMUE45
- Story Text: If you're looking for paradise, stop looking around, look within. That's the message from Germany's latest super-hot Latin musical "Paradise Road". Composed and produced by young German talent Maia Wiest, the musical stars solely Latin singers and dancers.
The troupe's already charmed audiences in Berlin and they're now planning to conquer the rest of Europe and maybe even jump across to Mexico.
"Paradise Road" is the latest Cuban export to charm Western audiences. The musical - the only one which stars solely Latin artists - is a temperamental fusion of Cuban salsa and classical tunes, a rare mixture indeed.
The brains behind the show may look Cuban, but they belong in fact to a twenty-seven year old German woman - Maia Wiest composed and produced the hottest musical Berlin has to offer at the moment.
Wiest, coming herself from a musical background, spent one year in Cuba to find the right people for her show. Three months after she arrived, her search was over and twenty young Cuban dancers and singers began to learn what musicals are all about - not necessarily a familiar form of entertainment in Cuba: "It wasn't easy, they don't have musicals anymore in Cuba and there weren't any people there who had the necessary qualifications for this kind of project so we ended up founding a 'musical' school. We had a choreograph who taught the singers how to dance and I taught the choir how to sing classical tunes - that was new as well for them, I mean salsa dancers, classical voices and singers put all together, that wasn't the usual style. So we combined all of that and that wasn't very easy."
The musical is set on a fictitious street called 'Paradise Road' in a poor Latino quarter in New York in the eighties, a time when a lot of Cubans fled the island for America to begin a new life there. Only that most found out that life in America wasn't all that easy as they'd expected and that 'paradise' was to be found inside of them and their spirit.
It's a theme that may be mostly Cuban and a story that mostly Cubans are familiar with, but that doesn't prohibit the music spreading its message and finding its way into the hearts of German audiences, where "Paradise Road" premiered last week.
"(Berlin) is quite a cold city and the culture is of course different but the musical still speaks to people.
Everyone has their own way of interpreting it", says Luise Enrique Spengler.
Latin-fever is still going strong in Germany. After the Buena Vista Social Club phenomenon, Cuban music continues to be a household name. And its popularity meant success for the members of this young cast.
"It was a whole new experience for me. I've been singing since I was a child but this is the first time I'm participating in a theatre piece. I think I made it you know! These men and women here manage to bring over a feeling of Cuba to the audiences. We're showing that paradise is in each and every one of us and that it's up to us to let it come out!"
And the audience let it come out! After the show, cast and audience let the floors shake with some hot rhythms and steps.
After the success in Berlin, the troupe are hoping to conquer the rest of Europe, starting with Spain, France and Italy and hopefully making it across to Mexico. Quite a long time away from their homecountry: "Yeah I'm a bit homesick but I like it here in Berlin, despite the cold! It's quite an experience for me to get to know a different culture especially in Europe because I don't know Europe at all. I actually feel at home now wherever I go."
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