Breakthrough on the Strip

Normally, Las Vegas is not a tour stop for artists coming from Cuba to perform in the United States. But there’s nothing normal about the visit of Havana Night Club, a 50-member ensemble that has become the first Cuban act in almost a year to overcome tough U.S. restrictions to play in this country.

The group opened at the Stardust Resort & Casino last week, 23 days later than planned and 11 members short. But the enthusiastic audience in the Wayne Newton Theater on Saturday night remained largely unaware of the entertainers’ two-year struggle to get here, one involving top government officials, high-powered lawyers, Hollywood celebrities and political intrigue that evoked Cold War memories.

Against the odds, the dancers, singers and musicians of this little-known company had dribbled into the country in small clusters as their travel papers were processed. Until the last minute, their arrival was so uncertain that choreographer Kenny Ortega had to run through rehearsals with stand-ins onstage.

Once the curtain went up, however, the exuberant, multiracial performers didn’t miss a step and showed no signs of strain. In an ambitious, two-hour musical revue, they offered a sweeping overview of the history of Cuban music, from its primal rhythmic origins to its modern fusions with rap. The sets, designed by Michael Cotten, evolve from a jungle to a colonial town to a flashy ‘50s nightclub.

The Havana Night Club is believed to be the first group from Cuba to play Las Vegas since the 1960s when Castro ejected the mob from Havana, a former casino capital. And the Stardust, with its infamous mob history portrayed in film, served as an ironic site for the performance.

The Las Vegas casino was also the venue where illusionists Siegfried and Roy, who are presenting the Cuban production, launched their Las Vegas careers 28 years ago. Watching the show from a center booth in the terraced theater last week was an obviously delighted Siegfried Fischbacher. Asked how the group managed to accomplish a feat that has eluded more famous Cuban artists for almost a year, the beaming entertainer responded in his German accent: “I must be a real magician.”

It may not be magic, but the group’s U.S. appearance certainly involved tricky legal and political maneuvering. Members arrived here not by sleight of hand but by virtue of a concerted international lobbying effort.

Even among Cubanophiles, this group was relatively anonymous until news reports started filtering out of Cuba last month that the Castro government allegedly wouldn’t let them leave. With opening day looming in Las Vegas, group members reportedly defied officials and vowed to make it to the United States with or without the government’s help.

The troupe and its leaders were portrayed as daring Davids who stood up to Castro’s Goliath. Skeptics scratched their heads. The story didn’t make sense -- especially because the Cuban government eventually let the company members apply for exit papers individually, rather than as a group.

Suddenly, there was heavy interest in “Havana Night Club -- the Show.”

Nicole Durr, the group’s artistic director, says the artists simply had a dream to perform in the States and doggedly pursued it. She says even the U.S. State Department, which had refused the group entry in February, found it hard to believe that the group was truly independent in a country where almost every artist is represented by agencies that are part of the Ministry of Culture.

“I will probably be the first independent [promoter] and the last independent that ever existed in Cuba,” Durr says. “I attribute this to me being a woman, because they never took me seriously. I’m a German, I’m a blond, and it’s a machismo country. And they thought ‘Ah, let her do it. Let her rehearse.’ ”

Now, with the Las Vegas show set to close Sunday night, rumors are swirling about a possible mass defection by the dancers and musicians.

Durr denies knowledge of that. However, she says she’s worried about a handful of key members, including a top dancer she calls “a little Nureyev,” who remain in Havana.

U.S. officials in Washington and Havana declined to discuss the specifics of the group’s visa applications. But a State Department spokesman suggested the case does send a message: “What it tells the Cuban government is that artists who are identified with the government will not be allowed to travel to the United States.”

Political intrigue aside, advocates of cultural exchanges with Cuba say the Havana Night Club case does not help their cause. They don’t begrudge the group’s success, but say it only makes the system more confusing.

“I was glad that they got in and I’ve been really happy to see some of the reviews coming out of Las Vegas,” says Louis Head, of the Albuquerque-based Cuba Research and Analysis Group, a nonprofit that promotes cultural exchanges. “But it’s unfair that they get visas because somebody pulled some strings when all these other artists who want to come here to perform are not being allowed in.”

The list of those whose visas were recently denied -- or delayed indefinitely by the intense post-Sept. 11 scrutiny reserved for people from Cuba as an alleged state sponsor of terror -- is a who’s who of Cuban performers. It includes pianist Chucho Valdes, Buena Vista Social Club member Ibrahim Ferrer and percussionist Miguel “Anga” Diaz.

The Anga case is particularly galling, says San Francisco attorney Bill Martinez, who has represented top Cuban bands in immigration matters for more than a decade. If independence is now a criterion for admission, nobody is more independent than Anga, who lives in Europe and is a French citizen, no longer even subject to U.S. monetary restrictions on Cubans who travel to the U.S.

“I’m duty bound on behalf of the Grammys and Chucho and Carnegie Hall and all the mom and pop cultural centers to find out how some people get visas and some don’t,” he said. “This [case] is an aberration that needs some sort of inquiry, and some accountability.”

Durr, a former model and fashion designer, is definitely the driving force behind Havana Night Club.

She founded the group in 1998 and has since taken it to more than 16 countries. In 2002, she brought Siegfried and Roy, friends and fellow Germans, to Cuba to get their support as presenters for a U.S. appearance. The group’s U.S. debut was originally scheduled for Los Angeles in February 2003 at the Universal Amphitheatre.

Then the troupe’s travails started.

The L.A. date was canceled and the group underwent several personnel changes. Before another date could be set, Roy Horn was mauled by a tiger during a show in October 2003. At the same time, the U.S. adopted its tough new policy on Cuba, closing the door to artists who had previously been allowed to perform here as part of cultural exchanges encouraged by the Clinton administration.

The new policy once again considers artists to be agents of the Cuban government, and their presence here detrimental to the national interest. To prevent Cuba from profiting through its creative community, the U.S. started denying visas to artists who had performed here many times.

Havana Night Club, which had never been here, had its visa request rejected in February. That’s when Durr went into action.

On her side was Pamela Falk, a New York law professor who had helped broker grain shipments to Cuba. Falk also played a key role in the dramatic reunion of Cuban defector Orlando Hernandez with his family, helping persuade Castro to let them join the baseball star.

Durr and Falk rallied supporters, including Kevin Costner, who wrote a letter to Castro, for whom the actor had screened “13 Days,” his film about the Cuban missile crisis, during a 2001 visit to Cuba. Falk then won the backing of Miami’s Cuban American National Foundation, an exile organization that in the past had opposed the entry of Cuban artists. The group’s president, Joe Garcia, promised not to stand in Havana Night Club’s way. He sent a letter of support to Secretary of State Colin Powell and urged fellow Cuban exiles in Las Vegas to prevent any protests at the Stardust.

To work the inside track in Washington, Durr’s team enlisted a former State Department official, Dennis K. Hays, who had served in the mid-’90s as coordinator for Cuban affairs under Clinton and later went on to work with the Miami exile group.

“Ten years ago this never would have happened [in Cuba],” he says. “Now you’re starting to see pockets of independent thought.... We win when we create independent pockets of thought in Cuba. I’m hopeful that my former colleagues will come to the same conclusion.”

In the end, it was this lobbying team that worked the real magic. The U.S. reversed its denial and granted the visas. Soon billboards went up announcing that the group would appear in a five-week run, from July 31 to Sept. 6.

Then the Cubans said no.

Exactly what happened in Havana is unclear because Falk barred group members from discussing their visa problems with a reporter, and Cuban officials could not be reached.

Durr referred political questions to Falk. But late Thursday, in an e-mail from France, Falk declined to be quoted.

But Durr did venture an answer when asked why the Cuban government relented and allowed her troupe members to travel after all the controversy. “My dancers were too determined,” she says. “[The Cubans] didn’t know what to do. They were overwhelmed because we stood up with one voice.”

*

Times staff writer Chris Pasles contributed to this report.