DANCE

The more than 60 singers, dancers and musicians of Havana’s legendary Tropicana nightclub are readying for their first U.S tour. A vestige of “decadent” pre-Revolutionary Cuba, the troupe is known for its fantastic costumes, Carmen Miranda headdresses and spicy salsa numbers. It arrives in Los Angeles May 24 for a weeklong run at the Variety Arts Theater and is booked for another week in New York. This isn’t the first Cuban performing group to visit the United States, but it is certainly the least political, said tour promoter Paul Trautman. However, resistance from the State Department greatly delayed and restricted the troupe’s tour. The Cuban government also had its doubts, he added. “They would have preferred to send something else. This show would never travel to Moscow. The Tropicana is not supposed to exist in an orthodox communist society. But the Cubans like this stuff, so its an accommodation the communists have had to make.”