Cuban dancer keeps dream alive after rehab from rare immune disorder

HAVANA, Aug 24 (Reuters) – Cuban dancer Yankiel Vázquez thought his dream of dancing with Cuba’s Nationwide Ballet was completed when a uncommon neurological dysfunction almost crippled him a number of years in the past.

The 29-year-old man, a local of the city of Mantua, in rural western Cuba, had joined the ballet in 2011. Shortly after, he was stricken with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a uncommon however usually debilitating situation wherein the immune system assaults the nerves, generally paralyzing one’s extremities.

“It took me a number of months to study to stroll once more,” he stated, calling it an “intense bodily and psychological rehabilitation course of.”

He returned to the ballet and this 12 months he grew to become a “first dancer,” an elite distinction inside the ballet made much more spectacular by his battle towards the dysfunction.

“Reaching ‘first dancer’ is what one goals of as a toddler,” he informed Reuters.

Cuba’s Nationwide Ballet, based in 1948 in Havana and later supported by Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution, is among the many world’s most famous ballet corporations. An related faculty has graduated 1000’s of dancers onto the world stage over a number of a long time.

The corporate’s 70 dancers have lengthy benefited from a workforce of physiotherapists who hold performers wholesome, in line with Viengsay Valdés, director of the Nationwide Ballet of Cuba, together with those that helped nurse Vazquez again to well being.

A workforce of physiotherapists arrived not too long ago from Chile to check notes with their professional counterparts from Cuba and to assist situation Cuban dancers for upcoming performances.

“A dancer is like an athlete. The significance of getting bodily preparation is crucial,” Valdes stated.

Reporting by Nelson Acosta and Reuters TV; Modifying by Mark Porter

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