Cuban ballerina Alonso gets top teaching prize

[December 28, 2010]  HAVANA (AP) -- Cuba has honored the celebrated ballerina and National Ballet director Alicia Alonso with its top award for arts instruction.

The 90-year-old prima ballerina assoluta received this year's National Prize for Artistic Teaching at a ceremony Monday in a wood-floor studio at the ballet's headquarters.

Alonso said she was touched.

She told admirers, journalists and dance students that "the most wonderful moment in life is when one can teach others what one has learned."

Alonso rose to stardom with the American Ballet Theater. She has led the Cuban National Ballet for decades, despite being nearly blind.

[Associated Press]

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