After a wait of nearly three years, when in 2010 the government of President Obama authorized travel again to some Americans to Cuba, the Semester at Sea Cruise, with 568 students from over 200 universities, has been licensed to travel to the island. Most of the students come from American universities. In that order they are followed by those of Mexico and Canada. The Semester at Sea international academic program established in 1964 will arrive with 648 people in Havana on December 9 and will depart for the United States three days later. This curriculum, sponsored by the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and administered by the Institute of Studies on board, arrived in Cuba for the last time in 2004. Between 1999 and 2004, the cruiser made 10 trips to the island, and in seven of them students held meetings with Fidel Castro. The restrictions that the government of George. W. Bush imposed on academic and cultural exchanges between Cuba and the United States prevented Semester at Sea could return in December 2004. During the trip, students receive lectures and courses, plus get first hand information about the ports they visit. Because the stay in Cuba Cruise cannot be...

Few minutes ago, Abelardo Estorino , one of the glories of Cuban culture and theater died at his home in Havana Estorino was born on January 29, 1925 in Union de Reyes, Matanzas, and by 1946 he was already in Havana with the firm decision to study to become a dental surgeon, a profession he practiced from 1954 to 1957. But, the theater became the true and only vocation that definitely fascinated him Throughout his career he won many awards, including the National Theatre Award 2002 Distinction for the Cuban Culture and National Book Award, awards that have marked, step by step, that inexhaustible capacity he always had for dramatic creation. Undoubtedly, Abelardo Estorino is a classic of our stage history. Stand among his best works El robo del cochino (1961) , Las impuras (1962), adapted from the novel by Miguel de Carrión ) , The fat cows (1962, first Cuban musical comedy ) , El peine y el espejo (1963), La casa vieja (1964), and a good collection of children's pieces as well as his later collages. Different international scenarios have received his repertoire. His works have been translated and performed in Czechoslovakia, Norway, Sweden, Mexico, USA and Chile,...

One of the paintings of the famous Cuban Wifredo Lam ( Sagua La Gande , December 8, 1902 - Paris, September 11 1982 ), was recently sold at an Latin American art auction at Christie's in New York for 845,000 dollars. " The Rose Zombie" ( 1950) - considered a tour de force in which he presents a syncretism iconic figure of the artist , scored one of the best prices on the double session that took place over two days (November 19 and 20 ) . Although this figure as far from his personal records set in December 2010 when “Les Fiancés , " was sold for $ 3 million at the Art Basel Miami Beach , just minutes after the auction opened. A month earlier, his " Les Abalochas danesent pour Dhambala , dieu de l' unité " imposed a new record for the Cuban painter, when the auction totaled 2.15 million at Sotheby's , the same place where in May of that year was sold "Sur les traces " for1.42 million. According to reports from the official site of the auction house, the big winner of the event was the Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo, with the sale...

Full guarantees and business opportunities will have foreign investors who want to put their capital in the Special Development Zone of Mariel (ZEDM) given the competitive advantages, including the free transfer abroad of dividends and profits, the strategic location of port, and the special tax regime with tax incentives. In the formation of this mega project, which expects to attract foreign investment and generate exports, Brazil has played a key role with a credit to Cuba for approximately 900 million dollars. On the presence of the South American giant in Western Cuba, the business prospects in different areas, and economic relations between the two nations, OnCuba spoke with Talita Lima, head of the commercial section of the Brazilian Embassy in Havana. The Special Development Zone Mariel is currently one of the most important projects in Cuba for greater economic management. In creating this space Brazil has become the main partner of the Island How do you see the integration of the South American giant in this project? I think it's an excellent opportunity for both countries. The National Development Bank in Brazil has always been very willing to offer high value credits Cuba that tend to create projects that improve...

Danzon , genre designated as Cuba’s National Dance, will be declared National Cultural Heritage this during the awards ceremony at the Cubadanzón 2013 International Festival to be held in Matanzas from November 21 through the 24. This distinction was vested in it by the National Monuments Commission, after a rigorous assessment, MSc. Bielka Cantillo , provincial director of the Cultural Heritage Center , said and added they have long been maturing the idea, due to the importance for the city, where Miguel Faílde played this genre for the first time . The first Danzon, known as Simpson Heights, debuted in the late nineteenth century, in the Club of Matanzas. It was nnamed like that as a tribute to a place where they used to give parties and dances, and Matanzas youth gathered at the time. “This dance is considered an example of intangible cultural heritage for the contribution Faílde made to the nationality Cuban culture, and endures to this day in the memory of all Cubans," Cantillo said The festival will feature dancers and researchers from Cuba and Latin America, primarily Mexicans, Venezuelans and Colombians. The event will begin on Thursday night with a special performance by the Concert Band...

The Argentinean troubadour Teresa Parodi will sing in Cuba with the microphone of Mercedes Sosa, which she keeps as a relic of whom she revered as a great mother. Parodi revealed that her long-awaited Cuban tour will also have the mythical “Negra" Sosa, the great voice that unites American songwriters, she said. “It was given to me by son of Mercedes, and I brought it as a piece of her to this country, which is the goal for those who defend the Latin American song," the author of some thirty albums said. With her horn-rimmed glasses, the singer stressed the twinning between Cuban and Argentine songs by artists such as Sosa, Maria Elena Walsh, Silvio Rodriguez and Pablo Milanes. With a prolific work and aware of cultural hotbed that lies in the deep Argentina, Parodi feels privileged to have drunk of Violeta Parra , Atahualpa Yupanqui or Chico Buarque . However, for her Mercedes Sosa was “the great mother, the voice that united all American songwriters “. In Buenos Aires she has also directed the cultural space of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in the former School of Naval Mechanics, a place of horror which now celebrates life....

Manuel González Hernández, better known as Manolin " El Medico de la Salsa " will perform at last on Friday November 29 in La Cecilia, in what will be his first major concert in Cuba after his final return to the island. Initially the presentation was scheduled for November 9 , coinciding with the closing of the Havana International Trade Fair , but due to problems with documentation of the popular Cuban musician , he had to suspend it . Resolved difficulties, Manolin will perform with Pachito Alonso and his orchestra, in an encounter in which he will sing some of their most popular themes and other recent creations. The musician is convinced that the connection with the audience is still intact, although he hasn’t played here since the early 90s. "It will be wonderful, I'm sure. I also know that I have to play the songs as usual because people want to remember and those who didn’t live it want the experience. I always dreamed of that, but will be more spectacular than I imagined, “he said in an interview with this website in October. Manolín, 48, decided to return to Cuba after living for more than a decade...

The Spoken Word, closely associated with hip hop culture, being one of its 4 elements, is a contemporary form of writing, speaking and acting oral poetry. With little room for development, spoken poetry in Cuba has been gaining followers. Even though it lacks information and sometimes a sense of ownership of those who do Hip Hop for the Spoken Word, we can now speak of a small movement of urban poets. Under the overall coordination of Elier A. Arcia Alvarez (El Brujo) , cultural promoter and Word Roads project leader, there was a concert with outstanding urban poets hosted by Dj Etian BJoyce and Etian “Brebaje” Man. This event was professionally filmed and aims to be the first visual memory of the Spoken Word in Cuba. The concert opened with Amehel Incera , pioneer of the genre in Cuba and founder of the Con las Manos project . With different style, barefoot and a capella, Edier, UNEAC member and storyteller, spewed its wind energy through an Abbakúa poem. The first woman poet of those attending took the stage. Afivola , with her dreadlocks and mic in hand began her challenge. Retorno, Paren and Libérate made her presentation a strong racial...

A million records have been sold since Cigala & Bebo Valdés revolutionized musical miscegenation with their album “Lagrimas negras” (Black Tears). It was a blend of Caribbean rhythms and Spanish vocals, which is considered today one of the musical events of the century. To celebrate 10 years of the event, this November 18 goes on sale in Spain a deluxe edition of the unforgettable phonogram. Black Tears. 10th Anniversary Edition is a double CD and double DVD book, accompanied by a booklet with 64 pages, new photos of the recording process, the lyrics and other texts in English and Spanish. The book includes the Black Tears CD and the CD and DVD version of the live concert White and black, originally recorded in audiovisual format. The package is completed with Bebo cuisine, a documentary that delves into this true partnership, with images collected from the first working session, the day they met, testing and recording the album. Success of a musical miscegenation Black Tears, title of the famous bolero by Cuban Miguel Matamoros, played in a a duet by the late Bebo Valdes (Quivicán, Cuba, October 9, 1918 - Stockholm, Sweden, March 22, 2013) at the piano and singer Diego...

The Cuban play Huevos by playwright Ulises Rodríguez Febles from Matanzas, will be premiered next November 16 in Miami, by Akuara Theatre, The Má Teodora and Cuban Theater Digital Archive of the Miami University. This staging , written in 2004 and premiered by Mephisto Theatre in 2007, reflected the actual events that preceded the mass exodus of Cubans through the Mariel in 1980 and the consequences of this event that has marked generations of Cubans on both sides . The play, under the general direction of Yvonne López Arenal and Alberto Sarraín , has the participation of the actors Enrique Moreno , Micheline Calvert, Liset Jimenez, Carlos Alberto Pérez- León , José Antonio Orta , Marcia Arencibia -Henderson , Miriam Bermudez , Christian Ocon, Roberto Bello and Imaray Ulloa . About Huevos, it is part of the trilogy Dramaturgia del éxodo, with Minefield and Citizenship, and his writer Ulises Rodriguez, who works in Miami in the staging of the play, shares with OnCuba some of his opinions. "Writing is a complex act, a necessity and pleasure humans live with. A dramatic text comes from an image of an event, a character, a story or even a phrase that impact and...

Filmmaker Arturo Sotto defines his latest work as a Renaissance painting by Bosco. We are talking about Boccacerías habaneras, one of the two Cuban feature films to compete for the Corals in the 35th edition of the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema. Inspired by stories of the Decameron, by Giovanni Boccaccio , the film consists of three separate stories, linked by a central plot: the room of a writer who lost his muses, where people come to tell their experiences aspiring to become literary characters and profit from this. La historia del tabaco, Los primos and No te lo vas a creer are the stories that make up the film. Each of them has its own visual style and achieved thanks to photography and other cinematic elements that compose them. Nearly fifty actors play the various roles and the locations are well filmed, from a circus to a cigar factory, just to mention a few examples. Arturo Sotto also performs in the film, something that was not as complicated because he is a graduate of Performing Arts in the ISA. But of this, he chose not to mention a word, rather be seen without clarifying or justifying anything...

This morning troubadour Teresita Fernández (Santa Clara, 1930) died in Havana. The funeral will take place in the Calzada and K parlor, in the Vedado neigborhood. The author of anthology works of music for children like Lo feo, Mi gatico Vinagrito, Dame la mano y danzaremos and many others, also accumulated an extensive work for adults, unknown to many. Troubadour, storyteller and teacher, she was known as the greatest singer. Her education began at home, and the sounds of her work show influences of ancient ballads and peasant folklore. Outstanding in her repertoire were texts by poets Marti and Gabriela Mistral she put music to. “Minstrel, poor, nomadic and free”, was how she defined herself. She had as much interest in poetry as in music and considered to be the song that unites both events, as she expressed in I am a teacher who sings, her biography written by journalist Elizundia Alicia Ramirez. Cuban culture today suffered a significant loss.

With the authentic flavor of central Cuba, two jewels without equal have just germinated: Elixir 33 and Extra Old Carta Blanca. This time under the brand Cubay, Cuban rum tradition gives again unequivocal evidence that when talking about spirituous in the world you have to take into account this Caribbean island. The debut of these products was, without a doubt, one of the biggest attractions exhibited during the second day of the 31st Havana International Fair, FIHAV 2013; good opportunity to show to the international business community the health Cuban industry is enjoying. With these new proposals, Cuba Ron Corporation will soon try to conquer the European and Latin American market, according to its president Juan Gonzalez Escalona, during the presentation of the Extra Old Carte Blanche, held at Don Cuba restaurant in Expocuba fairgrounds, usual venue of the appointment, at about 25 kilometers from the center of Havana. Elixir 33, a kind of mysterious, striking and complex fusion of tropical fruit with rum, is now added to the five members of the export portfolio of Cubay - Carta Blanca, Carta Dorada, Añejo Suave (Soft Aged), Añejo (Aged) and 10 years Añejo Superior (10 years Superior). Patiently aged in white...

'Border-Free, Sin Fronteras', is the title of the latest album of Chucho Valdes. It contains eight compositions, all but one written by Valdes. The pieces are in line with his latest productions and maintain the same line of work that blurs the boundaries between Cuban and international styles and musical traditions. The album holds a special place for a story that mixes the United States and Cuba. Afro-Comanche is a composition dedicated to a little-known event in the history of both countries: in the early eighteenth century, after a defeat at the hands of the Spanish army in the territory of present-day Texas, 700 Comanche prisoners were taken to Mexico and then to Spain to be shown to the Queen, before being transferred to Cuba, where most died under the effects of weather and other unfavorable conditions. While in Cuba, many of them were mixed with Afro-Cuban, as Valdes says. Including them in his disc is a way to draw attention to this historic event that hardly anyone has investigated. Interpretation refers to musical elements of Native Americans and concludes with very African sounds played on the bata drum-shaped hourglass used in the music of Santeria. The final section is...

Legendario shows a new image for the Cuban market. The Ember Havana Beverages and Soft Drinks Company will use the coming XXXI International Fair of Havana (FIHAV 2013) to renew the presence of a product of more than half a century of age. The official launch will be on Saturday November 9 at the Morro Cabaña Park. For a few months the new image is marketed in Spain, therefore this release in Cuba is to revive the memory of the people after years outside the domestic market, said Lezzer Amigo, head of the Legendario marketing campaign in Spain. The expectation is that more is known on the product in the country and increase sales to the island to be a benchmark for other nations of the world, said the Spanish businessman Jorge Alonso, Legendario marketing manager in the Iberian nation and elsewhere. "Rum, like all products, is no mystery and the simpler the process the better." According to Alonso there lays the essence of Legendario to earn consumer preference, which together with their quality and their ancient way of preparing opened for it several years ago, the doors of the Spanish market. Legendario goes beyond being a rum that has...

Private 3D cinemas in Cuba will be closed by decree, or at least for a briefing note, signed by the exclusive Executive Committee of the Council of Ministers. The text, published in the pages of the official Granma newspaper, specifies that “the cinematographic exhibition (including 3D cinemas) and computer games rooms will immediately cease any private activity.” The Government indicates that these particular business “have never been authorized”, a phrase that appears in bold letters. Some owners of the cinemas operated under license “children’s recreation equipment operator," since the exhibition of films is not a recognized activity in the legislation regulating private enterprise in Cuba. The note focuses its weight in explaining the decision to prevent self-employed people from selling imported goods or the reselling of items purchased in bulk from retail chains belonging to the Cuban state. The measure affects mostly unpopular “resellers” and those who sold clothes brought from abroad. However, the inclusion of 3D cinema comes as a surprise. The owners of the cinemas were less fortunate than the rest of his colleagues, who have until December 31 to liquidate their inventories. The decision to close the 3D cinema comes from well above, the same "roof" of...

Utility networks infrastructure (energy, water, and telecommunications) are key to the urban, architectural, social, and economic development of the island and any modern society. In the Habana Vieja historical district, a laboratory of positive experiences that are making the leap or attempting to provide one for the rest of the city, these installations are being successfully rehabilitated. Havana City Historian Eusebio Leal talked about recent work in the Habana Vieja district during an interview with journalist Magda Resik: “It is necessary and extremely important work. It could not have been done at any other time; it is being done now with admirable coordination between different state agencies, including those that supply electricity, gas, water, fiber optic, and telephone services…in sites that have been completed.” A March 2011 study conducted by a group of professionals associated with Florida International University (FIU), including architect Nicolás Quintana, found the following: A restoration and construction deficit for new projects in 421,000 homes in the city of Havana, and 1.6 million housing units nationwide. Drinking water and sewage systems will need investments of $3.2 billion and $2 billion dollars, respectively (without including operations and maintenance). Most of those costs are due to the need to...

For more than 50 years, “real estate” has been a forgotten phrase. During that time, the only thing that Cubans resident on the island knew was that if they had a house, and their needs changed because their family grew or shrank, they would switch “a well-located little place for a large one farther away.” That is called a “permuta” (swap), and it is all that Cubans know about real estate. In light of the changes that are being made on the island, opening up new opportunities for the real estate sector, OnCuba would like to provide a space where matters related to this subject can be discussed. This is a space that goes beyond the dichotomy of to sell or not to sell, and offers answers to the question of Real? or Estate? Wikipedia defines the concept as properties that “…are closely tied to the land, united inseparably, physically or legally, to the land, such as parcels, developed or not, houses, industrial buildings, farms, in short, properties that are impossible to transfer or separate from the land without causing them damage, because they are part of the ground or anchored to it…” However, the phrase “real estate” likewise describes...

Ever since we began publishing OnCuba, our goal has been to address Cuba´s reality, its beauty and difficulties, in a project that requires seeing with our heart but keeping our feet on the ground. Therefore, it can be assumed that one of the people we wanted to interview was Silvio Rodríguez. If there is anything that has characterized this artist, it has been his proven love for his homeland and his consequent fierce loyalty to his principles. Whether they be angels or demons, his visions always provoke debate, because his opinions leave no room for a middle ground. Of course we had to be patient; that phrase about his “door is worn down where the world has been knocking” is not that metaphorical, but like the lyrics of his song, the whims of fate, and above all the causes, made our wish come true. We asked Cuban intellectual Julio César Guanche to discuss certain subjects which he feels passionately about and concern him, with Silvio. Today we share that conversation with you. Also in this issue, we have the first edition of a new section devoted to a subject that has returned to the fore: real estate. We also take...

Don’t worry, politicians but I’m collecting signatures out of mystical vengeance. I bring a unique proposal. …Oh, that is why my proposal is so peculiar: The pig, National Mammal. That is a song by the popular Cuban music group Buena Fe. The thing is, for the inhabitants of this Caribbean island, the pig or swine is more than food; it is part of our culture, our idiosyncrasy, and it is even almost part of our family. Generally speaking, for any Cuban who is proud of being one, there is nothing more delicious than a nice dish of arroz congrí (black beans and rice), yucca with mojo sauce, and a helping of fried or roast pork. Weddings, Sweet-15s, graduations pumped by its heart. At every festivity or celebration, this food is necessary and indispensable. It was brought to Cuba five centuries ago, and delights not only national diners, but also those from abroad who come in search of the best of Caribbean cooking. Who’s ever seen a New Year’s without that cloud of aroma whether in rich neighborhoods or the humblest hills. There are dates when pork is the absolute center of everything. Tradition, marked by our ancestors, convenes the family...

Sculptor, painter, draughtsman, photographer, and engraver, Esterio Segura embraces and resorts to diverse languages, and that is why his work easily moves between the loftiest and the most popular intellectual precepts: anthropology, art history, philosophy, and world literature are some of the foundations that he makes use of, but his sharp and intelligent perspective keeps him connected and attentive to everything that happens in Cuba and the rest of the world. As an artist, he works to ensure that his work has an international projection, but one of his most pressing concerns is to exhibit in Cuba, which in his opinion is “the most honest measure that artists have to know where their careers are going. Maybe exhibiting here is not as effective from the standpoint of finances, promoting their work, or the specialized critics, but in the most honest, most profound sense of making art, it is. It is an important, significant thermometer,” he says. In a conversation with On Cuba, Esterio revealed that he comes from a “humble family” and not from an intellectual circle, which is why everything that he has achieved has come from study and being demanding with himself: “It is very attractive to move...

The lights come on and a fine layer of mist covers the stage. In the center, a silhouette appears, and her voice, accompanied only by a piano, softly caresses the first notes. In a few seconds, you realize that it’s “I Will Always Love You,” but the singer is not Whitney Houston, or Adele, much less the great Celia Cruz, even though this singer has performed songs by all of them at one point or another. Her name is Paola Guanche, she is 12 years old, and when the song really gets going and she unleashes the full potential of her vocal chords, no one—not her family, or the studio audience, or a single one of the thousands of people who support her in the United States, Latin America, and Cuba—have the slightest doubt about how this program is going to end. In a couple of decades, when biographers—who are always addicted to key dates, befores and afters, and turning points—want to pinpoint the start of Paola Guanche’s career, they will probably choose the night when this singer of Cuban descent won the first season of La Voz Kids. At least, that’s what they’ll say. However, even she might not...

At the age of 15, she was an amazona (female rodeo athlete) with the Sancti Spíritus province rodeo team to make her grandfather happy. Later, she earned her degree in pharmacy to please her mother. She was a young professional living in the city when she experienced a terrible sorrow that changed her life’s course and “pulled her to the mountain.” Her brother Rolando, at only 29 years old, suffered a fatal heart attack. A few years later, her father also died of the same cause. It seemed like their cattle-ranching lineage was disappearing, but Ana Julia Álvarez Rey took over their ranch, Arroyo Hondo: almost five caballerías (116 acres) of land, home to one of the finest herds of the Cebú Bermejo cattle variety in Cuba. “My grandfather, Gabino Álvarez, was very knowledgeable about cattle breeds. He had a special touch for taking care of the animals, and that was his best legacy to me.” More than 200 animals now make up the heard of one of the country’s most successful cattle ranches, the winner of awards such as Orgullo Cuba, Excellence for Woman Producers, and Standard Bearer, for its genetic work for obtaining double-purpose animals (meat and milk)....

Over 400 people were evacuated due to heavy rains that caused flooding this weekend in the province of Villa Clara, according to Granma newspaper. The majority of affected people reside in the areas of El Santo, in Encrucijada, Sagua la Chica, Camajuaní, and in the town of Dolores, belonging to Caibarién . The Hydraulic Exploitation Company of the territory reports that in the last 72 hours a significant cumulative of rains had dropped in the areas of General Carrillo, with a total of 327.9mm; Remedios ( 247.8); Camajuaní ( 142.7); Caibarién (138.9) and Santa Clara ( 125.4), but in general it has rained almost in the entire geography of Villa Clara. According to Diego Emilio Abreu Franco, a specialist of that company, the province collects an average of 85.2 mm in three days, which has benefited the dams that are at 83.7 percent of their capacity . Civil Defense authorities assess that rainfall has been beneficial, essentially for the reservoirs, which this Sunday reached 847 millioncubic meters of water, which is very favorable for agriculture, population and other sectors. The source notes that at the closing of this information, there were five damsthat were spilling: Alacranes, the biggest of Villa Clara; Palmarito, Arroyo Grande II, La Quinta and Minerva.

In Cuba, day by day it is possible to perceive how formerly empty spaces on the streets and doorways have been swamped with neon signs announcing boutiques, print services, cell “clinics”, and so many small businesses that were considered illegal economic activities just three years ago. We are witnessing how new behaviors are emerging from the basis of society as the State’s functions are being decentralized in order to revive this sector of economy, small and medium businesses. Not going through the legislation prior to the triumph of the Revolution in 1959 (the Constitutions of 1901 and 1940), which constitutionally outlined prerogatives granted to the private sector in the country as the predominant economic source, the first trace of small businesses in Cuba can be found in the introduction of the Nationalization Law 980 of October 13th, 1960, where it the revolutionary reality established in Cuba with the existence of capitalism was declared incompatible and just left margin for medium and small enterprises. The nationalization process did not imply the immediate or total liquidation of the small and medium capitalist sector; their presence was necessary and feasible. Yet, during early 1968, with the Revolutionary Offensive approximately 58 000 businesses by...