After Giselle, Alicia’s fame continued to grow. Dance critics gave her rave reviews. The Ballet Theatre choreographers offered her more and more parts.
In 1944, she was photographed for Life, which was one of the most well-known and popular magazines of the time. Soon after that edition was published, she received a letter from her mother:
Mijita,
Papá and I saw you in the Cuban edition of Life magazine. We were so surprised! We knew you had been working hard to become a professional ballerina in America. But you didn’t tell us that you are so famous!
I want you to know that Papá bought every copy he could find in Havana and gave them to all our friends and relatives.
We are so proud of you.
Con cariño,
Mamá
The letter made Alicia happier than all the applause and standing ovations and rave reviews combined. Papá had never approved of her becoming a dancer, but now he was bragging about it to his friends.
Everything had turned out well after all.
“Plié…relevé…plié…relevé!” Alicia called out. “Straighten those legs! Hold in your stomachs! Necks up, shoulders down!”
Alicia walked around the studio of her new dance school, Academia Nacional de Ballet Alicia Alonso, clapping to the music as her young students ran through their warm-ups. They wore leotards and tights and ballet slippers, and their hair was neatly tied or combed back. They watched Alicia carefully and even a little nervously as she inspected their movements. She knew they were eager to please their teacher, just like she’d always been eager to please her teachers. Alicia’s studio was just as strict as Señor Yavorsky’s had been.
In 1950, Alicia and Fernando had fulfilled their longtime dream of opening a school for ballet in Havana. They wanted to give back to their community, to their country, by helping to nurture the next generation of ballet dancers.
They based themselves in Havana, but they couldn’t give up touring and performing completely. They still made trips to New York City to dance with Ballet Theatre, which had been renamed American Ballet Theatre, and with other ballet companies, too. They also brought their dancer friends back to Havana with them to teach and perform.