Broadway's Buena Vista Social Club

25:50And it really helped because, yes, it's great to have the technique, but also with this authentic and grounded type of dance, you really have to just be connected in any way possible. So a lot of it was just sitting down and learning from Peter. And just, you know, he was very big on the divine center and connecting yourself and connecting your chakras to the higher power, whatever it is. And it goes far beyond like belief. It's really cool. and belief in spirituality. But it's really cool to connect the dancing to, it's almost like you're being, for lack of a better word, possessed by this beautiful art.

26:32So it was really cool to tap that into on a Broadway commercial stage. Yeah. So moving to the folks who portrayed your characters in the 90s. I don't like to say the older versions because it's not, you're not. Bless y 'all. The less young versions. The rebirth of the Buena Vista Social Club, it really did become a global phenomenon. You both, even on this panel, spoke about the responsibility and the weight of making sure that it was authentic, making sure that you were representing the legends appropriately. Did you feel that weight? And how did you do that day in and day out, knowing your history and talk a little bit about the importance of where you come from and your history?

27:21You're going to cut me off guard like that. You guys, we sent you these questions.

27:31These aren't gotchas. Go ahead. Yeah, I think it's a responsibility because for some people, this is part of their lives. Right. And it's also part of my life. like this character used to be my childhood musical hero, Ibrahim Federer. And I've been in touch with his son. And at first, it felt a little bit like a weight on my shoulder because I'm not an actor. So I felt like I had to fake something. I had to impersonate something that I am not. This is your Broadway debut and your acting debut. Yes. That is incredible, you guys. Wait till you see him on stage. That's incredible. And so something that really helped me was that I'm so lucky that my life resembles a little bit or have like points of contact with the Ibrahim Federer's life.

28:29So I grew up in Cuba. I graduated from music university. I started playing in symphonic orchestras and jazz groups. And I was kind of like in the chic environment of music, you know, musicians where you're like, all right, you're going to be performing and whatever. Anyway, I ended up working in Switzerland for a bit and then in Denmark for a bit. And I went to Spain on holidays and my working visa was about to expire. So I went to the Cuban consulate and they took my passport and they banned my entrance to Cuba for five years. And so in order to survive, I had to busk and I had to, you know, play in bars for food.

29:08And, you know, and then, you know, fast forwarding time, here I am on Broadway. and I feel like Ibrahim Ferrer's life was a little bit like that. In the 50s, he was like playing, performing, like in these different places, and then the revolution happened. All of that changed. He was busking and shoeshining in the street, and then there was a rebirth of his musicianship and his life through the Buena Vista in the 90s. And so what I realized and what my coaches helped me realize was like I didn't have to fake anything. I didn't have to impersonate anything. I could just like use my experiences and the things that I've gone through as the support for the script.

29:51And so that really made it so much more valuable for me to pay homage to their memory and to what they did to the world. Because their lives are basically an inspiration or a resemblance of what my own life has been. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Aina, do you want to talk a little bit about you have an extensive jazz background? And you are like an ambassadorship. You go around and teach and play jazz. Is it similar in that now you're like the ambassador for this cultural movement that is Cuban music? Yeah. Not necessarily a jazz ambassador, but well, to be specific, I was a member of Lincoln Center Jazz Ambassador.

30:33So I did a trip twice with them. The first was Latin America and the Caribbean, and the second one was North Africa, Central Africa. So that's an ambassador.

30:48Let me see. I feel like right now in this show, we are being ambassadors ourselves. Exactly. Even if we don't have to travel, people will come to us to see us. The other thing is that, well, there are also plans of having this show for next as a tour is that right? that was one of the questions so you are planning on taking this I don't know if we're going but but the tour is the tour is going okay so that's another way of being basically ambassadors of this story if we can put it like that you know spread the joy spread the joy so you guys all we had a chance to hang out backstage and there was clearly a connection with all of you.

31:37And it sounds like you just started working together in January. And the representation, the Buena Vita Social Club also has this deep rooted friendship. What do you guys do backstage? What's your kind of like routine? I see some smiles. Like, how do you have this connection? It seems very organic, very natural. Do you guys hang out outside? I mean, it's so grueling. the hours that you have to maintain. So you spend a lot of time together, I would imagine. I know many of the musicians. Sorry. I know many of the musicians because I'm a musician myself. So each time they bring another musician, I'm like, how are you doing?

32:15And all of that. And most of the time they can tell you, me and some of them be driving crazy. People, you know, practicing on stage because we be practicing also with the drones and all of that. So that's one of the things that, you know, some people be doing exercise or calming or warming up on stage, you know, things like that. that you do when you're on a stage. You were saying? Well, when you do a show like this, your time is vastly compounded with each other. And so, yes, you say only since January, but, like, the mileage that comes from the hours and hours that you spend with each other, having to be vulnerable to, like, multiple extents, that it really just compounds the time, and it compresses the time.

32:58And so you kind of get the same, if you think about a regular friendship that you have, if you were really to put in the number of hours, 100 hours over maybe several months, we could do 100 hours in two weeks. And so that alone is just, it gives you the opportunity to really connect and also see when somebody's frustrated, but it all happens very, very, very quickly. At the same time, I think throughout our entire building and just what the show is, we all kind of understand that like there's very very very very very like minuscule drama at least that i'm privy to in the building and i think we all just kind of come to it with the respect and the humility that this is so much bigger than all of us and that we really are making history as the first afro latino show on broadway and the first this is this is the first year that two latino shows have been on broadway at the same time ever and so this is the first time a show has been on Broadway where all of the music is exclusively in Spanish.

34:01And so there's a legacy that we're kind of building and a history that we're making that kind of garners this respect from all of us. And at the same time, it's so much fun. Like, it's just fun. The music makes you happy. And so even when we're waking up early and it's cold outside and we're going into rehearsal, you know, we walk in and the music is playing. There's like smiles going. And like, you're like, you still got crust in your eyes, trying to get the coffee to They hit your cerebellum as fast as possible. And you're just like, oh, man, there's just a warmth that just melts you and defrosts you and opens you to that camaraderie.

34:37And it's a social club. Yeah. It's a social club. It opens you to the experience of building this beautiful thing together and appreciating everybody else's gifts that they have to bring to it. And it's just a celebration. At the end of the day, it's a celebration every day. And even when you're not having the best day, we're on stage. and it's, you know, those first moments where you go, ah, ah. And it kind of like, it just kicks up this dust. This kicks up this dust. You know, from the ground. And it's like, ah, and then we're just like breathing in it and we're there together. Amazing. I love that.

35:11It's great to love your job. Yeah, you guys are lucky. We are going to open up to the audience questions. There's two mics if you want to line up. And while we're getting folks to line up, We have something called a Dory. So we're also streaming this. So those because, as you know, we have offices all over, all over the world. And so people submit their questions. So I'll read the first one before we before we go to our live audience. The show is the most vibrant and beautiful Broadway show I've ever seen. Any plans to tour nationally? Thank you for blessing us with so much Latin greatness. So you mentioned there's there's a plan to tour nationally.

35:50Yeah, there's a plan to tour, I think, next fall. And we'll see what happens because it's going really well on Broadway right now. So maybe we'll have to clone the company so that we can send a company out and still be able to perform here on Broadway. That's usually what happens. Like, when it's successful, it's like, okay, then you have another company. And then, you know, like Hamilton had like 15 tours going on at the same time. You know, they did it too fast. But, you know, a lot of these shows, like MJ has like five companies out right now. North American, Germany, London, London's about to close, Australia.

36:24But Australia is going to be the, you know, so you kind of just, you build this thing and it becomes a machine, unfortunately and fortunately. And then, yeah, you just kind of like plug it and you kind of recreate this thing and it becomes another extension of the show. But, you know, they still want to make that Broadway money. This is the original. You guys come see it. As well as the touring company. Great. We have a question over here. Yeah, I was able to see it in the Atlantic and then I've seen it a couple of times on Broadway. And so as an audience member, it's been interesting to see like there's a pivotal scene that used to be a dance and now it's a conversation.

37:02So it was interesting to see all of those changes. Thank you for coming, so many times. Yeah. Well, I'm Cuban, so it's kind of like a requisite whenever our family's in town. but would love to hear from the perspective of the two folks who were in the Atlantic what is it like transferring from off-Broadway to on-Broadway with all of these changes to something you did day in and day out for three months? Yeah, it was interesting because actually the Atlantic felt like a complete show and so when it transferred to Broadway and Broadway needs to be really compact and in terms of like the production itself the dimension of this it was 200 seats in the Atlantic it's 1200 seats on Broadway and so yeah there was there was some adjustment there was a little bit of a something that felt a little bit like a grind because we were attached I mean maybe me personally because I'm not really a theater person and there were some moments in the Atlantic version that were so oh my god is that gonna go but then you know when the thing was complete and we started trying it in front of the audiences and everything felt so in the flow and beautiful.

38:12I think it grew. It became a more complex and compact kind of art form. Awesome. Thank you. And then one more question from the Dory. I love the performance. I understand that this is an amalgam of true and embellished stories. What is true and what is embellished? I really want to This is actually kind of fun. So from what I know of, a lot of the ages are different. We've got the 50s cast, and you assume they're around the same age. In real life, they're not. Like, compay Segundo, he was 50. He was 50 when he was born in 1902. when I think he met Omara as like as someone who's like in her like younger 20s or something and so like that's something that when I think about it I'm like oh like you know it just it takes me out because I have to just like remember I'm like okay we're like this is the this is like this is embellished at the end of the day and then one of my favorite things is that the romance between Ibrahim and Omara is not real so I mean I'm sure there's like there's love there of course but like like i would hope so but it's like it's not as like like it's not as emotional as that and as um as you know as real as like we're making it like there's i don't think there was any kiss you know during well in the real life so that's i think that's very fun because i'm like this is something that i get to like make true in my story as this character.

39:55Ruben and compay didn't meet until they made the album. Like in the show we're kind of portrayed as like, you know, besties. They didn't meet until they made the album. That was like the first time that they had met. I don't think did, like, Aive didn't, Aive also, she, they took a picture, like, Omara posted a picture like a couple months ago of like them together. I think she recently passed. Yeah, like, no, no, Aive. Aive. Oh, Aive. Ade and Omada, they weren't estranged. Yeah, they weren't estranged. They weren't estranged. And they were together. She posted a picture of her and her sister before she passed.

40:32Oh, tension for Broadway. You know, they have to theatricize. And Omada is also like very, very, very warm and flirty and so soft. So that is like, yeah, very different as well. Very different. I love it. One more question over here. Hi, my name is Maya. I had the privilege of bringing my dad to see this show in February, and he loved it. And apparently I gave him cool credit because he told all of his friends about it. It was before it got even bigger, so I got that cool credit. So my question is, I have only recently become a theater fan, and from an outside observer, it just seems like it's an art form that is deeply collaborative and requires so much trust and vulnerability.

41:13And I'm so curious if you can provide a peek behind the curtain on what that process looks like and what learnings could be applied to other work types where you're building trust. So were there any exercises or things that really helped you bond as a unit? And that could be applied to space like Google. Great question for Googlers here. Great question. I guess it's kind of like when you go on your first day of school that you don't know anyone, you start slowly knowing people and knowing the cliques here. Anybody else would like to add something? I remember during rehearsals, we had a lot of time set aside to just sit in a circle and do cute little bonding exercises.

41:58We had a couple of questions, and we all put our answers on this little card, and then we threw it in a hat. And we would guess, somebody would go in the middle and pick a random one up and be like, whose is this? And then all the way until everybody was done. So we had stuff like that set aside to, you know, connect us. And we also very early on, we established that while this is a very intimate and beautiful story, this is also at the end of the day, we are work family. Because family, you know, family, you know, if y 'all get in a tussle or whatever, you're going to make up and it's fine. but like we were like hey if I don't get my check on Thursday so we established that very early on there was a there was a lot of I guess a lot opened up in that like I say that to say um so we established the relationship very early on and we all understood what it was and we also also obviously do care about one another um so we we set a lot of time aside to get to know each other and you know establish that relationship of like hey we're cool but this is a work thing a work family and you know i'm saying but we we come we come above that in a sense when we when we establish that it's all in good fun so yeah i think oh sorry dude i'm i um i was like checking behind me to see if you're gonna answer i think along with that like yes there are those group exercises that can help you like especially establish that trust or just get to know people a lot easier.

43:35Like I think that at the end of the day, who you put out there, like who you put out into the world is, you know, what you're going to try and receive back. And I feel like if you, you don't, there's no need to like be an open book to share. Like if that's your thing, that's my thing, then please do like do that. And like, just be confident in that because I feel like the more that I have like shared something with someone that I feel comfortable to share, I find that they feel a little bit more open and inclined to do the same thing. And I know we learned that, but like in this process, you're going, you're going to be spending so much time with these people.

44:11Like it's so like, it's sometimes easy to let that guard down to like trust that they'll take care of you and you'll take care of them on stage, off stage. And of course there are boundaries. And when that happens, you, you get there. But if you're, if you're putting that good energy out yourself not to sound you know but like if you're putting that out there yourself like it is you're bound to find that and so to have that trust in yourself at the end of the day that you're going to that you're confident in yourself and that you're going to make the friends that you know you you want then I feel like that's what's created that for me and this my inner circle if you will theater is a very vulnerable thing acting is a very vulnerable thing um being human is a very vulnerable thing and so i think i every show process is different um i think i have done a little more experience with like just a bunch of different shows and it's you have to be very intentional attentional about creating a space where people feel like they are allowed to be vulnerable and you're allowed to also be closed.

45:23But I think what happens is and what Saheem was so good about and what I've had other directors, yes, the exercises, there are ways to kind of put play into how you're approaching that experience. Because we have this standardized, these formalized things. Okay, we're going to do this and this thing. But I think a lot of time play is vulnerable, but play is fun and play is how you learn quicker. That's how you are more open. You know, the brain scans that show how the quickest way to learn is through play because it's not it's not a formalized thing and it's not compartmentalized. And so what happens, I find that could translate to many different workspaces is fostering a space where people feel like they can be vulnerable, but they also feel like they don't have to be.

46:10and they feel like they can come to it where they are and people respect what that space is and say, you know what? I'll see you when you're ready for me. Or like, I got you as well. And like, whatever you're doing, we're doing this together and we got it. And that's in life. That's in life, right? We're going to take one more question. Are we out time? Two more questions. Great. Go ahead. Hi, thanks for coming today. Love the show. I saw it right before I went to Cuba for the first time this year. So you guys got me in the mood. The whole party scene and all that on stage is wonderful. My question for you is that I noticed that this production has the band on stage and performing with all the actors, right?

46:54It's all kind of mixed in. It's a little bit different from some of the other shows where the band is in an orchestra pit, hidden. How is the experience different as far as a performer on stage? It's perfect. I love, love having them on the stage with me. Although sometimes I feel like I can't break the, break character and look at them, but sometimes they'll do like, there's, they'll do something amazing in their solo or something like that. And I'll be like, ooh, that's amazing. Like, you know, but I can't do that on stage. So like, just to have that, like that authenticity every night, it's perfect for me.

47:31Like I couldn't ask for anything, anything better, especially for my Broadway debut. Yeah, I think one of the things that's very special about this show is that it's a mix between an actual play and a concert. Because there's no like musical dialogues. I was waiting for you. Right? So I really love the fact that the band is there for you guys to experience that concert. And then the play has all the weight and the drama and the, you know, the fun, funny parts and all of that. So I feel it's a very beautiful combination of those two things. The show is about the music. So they really were intentional about highlighting that.

48:10And we were just, yeah, there's a story in between it. But the show is about the music at the end of the day. And so that was integral. And also, these are not like regular union musicians. These are Cuban musicians. That's not like Jeremy from Des Moines, who is like... Sorry, no offense. Any Iowans out there? But no, like, it's real. Like, they're like, some of them would be like, I would have never done this if I was in a pit. You know, they're on stage. And they're also part, they're characters in the story as well. So it's, I think, the most integral part of the show. Do you guys know, actually, the question before was exactly that.

48:47Do you know the story of how they assembled the musicians on the stage? I don't think that's a question for us. Because we're not, I mean, like I said before, I'm a musician myself. and David Ogendo is the one that I have to say thanks because he also recommended me for this. He recommended me as a singer and musician. Somehow I end up acting. I did it before when I was a teenager. So getting the band together, I guess that was a process of all the people that are not in this group right here. Juan de Marcos. Yes, Juan de Marcos was, Juan de Marcos, exactly. He handpicked everybody. He called it, between him and David Oquendo and Chacho, but they, he handpicked everybody.

49:36Okay. He called them and was like, yeah, I mean. But Juan de Marcos is the original producer of the Buena Vista Social Club album from the 90s, the Grammy Award album. Yeah, that makes sense. So he's like a little bit of a godfather of the show. Yeah, and he like, and he is the reason why a lot of, all of this Cuban Latin jazz music is still prominent today because he is the like safe keeper. of it all and he's the reason why it's still going and yeah the fact that he like you guys are also the reason why it's still going it's true it's you are sharing this to the rest of the world we're going to take one more question and we're going to wrap hi so first of all thank you so much for coming to our company um i'm karen and i'm a dancer not an actor and today i've heard a lot about vulnerability on the theater stage or backstage and unfortunately or fortunately i'm only familiar with vulnerability in a dance company.

50:26So my question is, for those who have experience in both, how does that vulnerability differ, if any, between a theater company and a dance company? I think, yeah, for theater, I think it's a little less on the nose. And I think that dance does something that theater cannot and vice versa. I think dance is a very physical thing so a lot of things like when you're mad it's more here and you're like you know and you can obviously implement that in your dance like whatever the emotion is whatever the feeling is for the dance and like dance company it's um yeah but there's just a certain there's a certain breath a different breath and a different uh vibe that comes with theater um a lot of it is more internalized whereas um i think confrontational versus internal uh dance is more confrontational and it speaks on so many yeah and so does theater but i just think that they have different um they have different i guess um alleyways into the same deal like i kind of equate it with i kind of talked about this in class the other day um i i equate dance with like malcolm x and theater with Martin Luther King.

51:39Like Martin Luther King like used his words and like uplifted the community with his speeches and with his words. And Malcolm X was a lot more about physical force and like getting what he wanted. So I guess like dance kind of has that effect. It's all for the same cause, but just different avenues. Thank you. That's the word. I like that. Yeah. I hope that helped. The last story question is not a question. It's a statement, but I do want to read it out loud. I just want to say that I was in attendance of your performance in July, and it felt so magical to be in a room with so many of the Latin community of all generations.

52:16Dancing to the happy songs, wiping away tears to the heartfelt songs. It did not feel like just a Broadway musical. It felt like a cultural connector and celebration. So thank you for this beautiful performance. I want to encourage every single one of you to go see this, to go see it again, to go see it again. It is a joyous event. I want to thank Isa and Devon and Jainardo and Wes and Mel for visiting us here in our Google offices and sharing your talent with the world. And I lastly just want to say representation matters, especially for this generation that can see themselves in you on the stage.

52:51So thank you for what you do. We celebrate you. We're so grateful for you. Having this conversation in a place like Google, which in so many people's eyes, people who want a better world and all that, see like these huge corporations as the devil. So great to plant a seed of conversations like this about inclusiveness and art and vulnerability. I think this is something great that you guys are doing here. So we appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you.

53:23Thanks for listening. You can watch this episode and tons of other great content at youtube.com slash talks at Google. Talk soon.