The sun rises early in these lands; it pursues you. Even the shadows are luminous here, according to Antonio Ferrer Cabello, who paints musicians at the Casa de la Trova. That’s where I went on one of those scorching days. Looking back at me from that cultural center’s walls were Pepe Sánchez, Miguel Matamoros, Sindo Garay, and Compay Segundo. Hearing the magnificent voice of Eva Griñán calmed me...music is calming. Where did they find those singers and guitar players, that bottomless well of music, that stirring poetry, so subtle, invincible, and eternal? How many late nights? Whence those bohemian airs, still floating in the air? That’s what I asked Eliades Ochoa, I don’t remember where. Maybe it’s that here, people drink their rum strong, and here, the earth trembles; but the people are stronger. It may be…. That’s what he said, and he would know. Even the most impassive feel it: the music; it’s with you as you walk, and runs through you even when you don’t hear it....That eros overflowing in the Caribbean, the one that Eduardo Rivero, the master of dance, talked about. Maybe it’s the air; maybe it’s the murmur that accompanied Miguel Velázquez himself, the island’s...

All roads lead to Rome. So, one day she took one of them and woke opposite the Coliseum. The ancient stones trembled with her heartbeat, her deep elf; but that's her most recent story. A little behind... Late 1950s. We will have to enter the look of a girl who watches the flowers of sugarcane in the modest neighborhood near America sugar mill, in the Cuban East. And her ears to listen, quietly, the unmistakable tone of Violeta Casals from the Mountain Range: "Here Radio Rebelde ... from the Free Territory of Cuba". The magic eye radio will be yours, her father says. This is the story of a woman who conquered an entire city. Santiago de Cuba misses her. Her name is Consuelo Almaguer. Fears and audacities "My mother always was accompanied by that radio, my mother whom I lost so early. In that enormous apparatus I listened to songs of the time, and I sang when daddy took me up the table of the house. I also really liked the lady who said, "Rina lasts longer." I did not know that she was an eternal masterpiece of spoken information: Consuelito Vidal. "Since I learned to read I liked...

-¡But must we go on walking with all this baggage? said the American writer and filmmaker Alison McMahan. Cameras and supplies were rented and costly. A path of oxen appeared before them and about two kilometres were missing to reach the place in Cambodia. 'What a weak Americans! It was the response from the villagers. And then they cut a long bamboo stick and hung everything. The team had arrived from the United States and ... they went into life after the horror. Veal Thom is a lost site of Southeast Asia where people who have lost their limbs work and live, with their family. Some are survivors of the genocide of Pol Pot, regime that exterminated more than two million human beings between 1975-1979. Others are children, victims of a soil full of mines after years of war. A terrible picture appears, but the film is mainly a celebration of will. No matter where a well told human story always shocks. I am in a seat of Cuba cinema watching the work Bare hands and Wooden limbs. Alison McMahan, its director, won the award for best direction (short film category) at the 14th Santiago Alvarez in Memoriam International Documentary...

His eyes are a flame when he speaks of Cuba; although since 1961 he resides farther north. Emilio Cueto (Havana, 1944) is a lawyer, researcher and collector. The law has taken him to major international firms and some of the volumes of authorship are Cuba in Old Maps; Illustrating Cuba's Flora and Fauna, and Frédéric Mialhe´s The Picturesque Cuba. His latest book, Our Lady of Charity in the soul of the Cuban people, was presented recently in the mythical town of El Cobre and various institutions of the island, including the National Library of Cuba José Martí and the Caribbean House. It was also delivered to the 15 provincial libraries for distribution to all municipal libraries. His collection of objects and materials on the Greater Antilles is remarkable; his passage through the world, indefatigable; and his views, sharp. His life experience in the United States reveals more than a singularity. Emilio Cueto Opportunity, search, passion We know that you arrived in the United States through Operation Peter Pan. At the height of your years, how do you revisit those moments? How did you keep alive the fire of your country, the evocation of what was left behind? The separation of...

Writer, editor, cultural manager, communicator and blogger. This Indefatigable and quixotic man was born in Bayamo, and has a degree in Literature at Oriente University and was part of the founder team of the Festival and the Casa del Caribe in Santiago de Cuba. Based in the Dominican Republic since 1998 and since 2013 he lives in Miami; he has published fifteen books in various genres such as literary criticism, fiction, children's literature, essay ... and it seems he has another fifteen in mind. The list of prizes he has won includes the Memoria Award (UNESCO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, 1997); Juan Rulfo Ibero-American Short Story Award (Radio France International, 2012), where he was a finalist; and national awards on essays (2008) and short story (2013), on Dominican soil. In his spiritual cosmos, against the grain of set phrases or slogans, he has opted for " loving consistency of family, friendship, tolerance and solidarity". This conversation must have taken place long ago, because Jose M. Fernández Pequeño is today one of the key figures of Cuban literature. I believe it's never too late , if there is time for dialogue. For a writer who has lived...

At just steps from Céspedes Park, in the heart of Santiago de Cuba, a sui generis site rises. Its walls save the sturdy decline of San Basilio Street, before the city to run into the sea. And although the waters have receded, the place is still located in a dominant position. The Velázquez Balcony , maybe it should not be called that way. In more than one book it is stated that its structure is located where Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, El Adelantado, ordered to build the first fortress of the city. However, subsequent research suggests that this bastion was really made by Hernando de Soto, Governor of the nascent village afterwards. We are talking about almost virginal construction dates: 1538-1544. Over the centuries, the fort underwent various adaptations, such as the building of a house in the eighteenth; its conversion into a barracks in the early twentieth-during the US intervention in the Island-, and later it became part of La Salle College, as stated in the Guide to Architecture of Eastern Cuba (Andalucía, 2002). In 1930, the magazine Archipelago states that "(...) the loopholes that overlooked the bay falling into the Manga Chupa alley were preserved ". That narrow...

Martí and Moncada is a clear direction, is Santiago de Cuba. It is as if the city could not exist without the color of those streets as if it receives the strength of its people. There, where medicine and magic mate, everything seems to find a solution. The ancient wisdom was concentrated and distills generous at every step. Tobacco and honey, stones and feathers, pictures and seeds. Chickens and pigeons are placed into small cages, there are of all colors and for all purposes: life-saving soups, demanded offerings, insults to wash... People walk by, browse, query, purchase. Squeeze their bunch of herbs or roots. The popular botanic has proved a tireless creation. The Afro-Cuban line in all its glory. Juan Tomás Roig and Lydia Cabrera would have made a killing. Beside the known benefits of aloe or yagruma, come to your attention some plant names that say it all: vencedor (winner), I can more than you, tames braves, open roads, remove curses ... They say that in the right doses, that in the right hands, fulfill their duties. The prickly pear leaf hangs next to the amulet that will protect the house against the evil eye, from the looks that...

This interview could also be called "How a book saved a chapter of Cuban culture", because that's Mito, verdad y retablo: El Guiñol de los hermanos Camejo y Pepe Carril, volume published by Ediciones Union written by Rubén Darío and Norge Espinosa. This book cannot be left once opened. Cannot be closed once read. It enlightens and twists you. It plunges you in that "greater Trinity for the national scene" founded by the National Puppet Theatre, which gave flesh and sap to Pelusín del Monte-considered the national puppet and expressly asked to Dora Alonso, who dazzled the entire Cuba and took his firelight beyond. Mito, verdad y retablo: El Guiñol de los hermanos Camejo y Pepe Carril, makes you live with its findings and falls, the circumstances surrounding artistic creation in Cuba, either during the hatching of the 1960s than in the gorge of the 1970s. And when putting away the shadows, definitely, also becomes a healing book. One of its authors , Rubén Darío Salazar Taquechel (Santiago de Cuba, 1963), has taken Cuban art to several continents. His curriculum is overwhelming. In recent years he has just won the Avellaneda Plate and the Omar Valdés Special Prize, both for...

His stilts plunged into the bay. The look reverberates with the sun reflecting in the water or lost in the distant mountains. A few meters away, the boats unload their precious cargo or cruise reveals its distinctive looks. On one side, the boys exercise their muscles playing basketball. While you are enjoying the conversation in that environment, you can try the Grilled lobster, shrimp enchilada, snapper ... or perhaps prefer rice with seafood, spiced by chatinos (deep fried bananas) and Daiquiri. The service is provided in the two currencies circulating in Cuba now -CUC and CUP-, "everything with utmost courtesy." We were unable to verify this, but so says José Merino, manager of the restaurant Nautical Club in the Bay of Santiago de Cuba. Opens at 10:00 am and closes only at midnight. . Years ago This place began to languish since the seventies of the last century ... and ended in ruins. Few years back, some still risked to reach its platform walking on rusted beams, either to remember old times, or to steal a kiss in its corners. Indeed, the Santiago people never resigned themselves to losing such a unique place. Linked to the sea gate of the...

A woman has lost everything and only faith remains. Such is the image captured by the lens of Harold César Ferrer Pérez, winner of the first prize in the 15th National Exhibition of Religious Art, as announced in the San Antonio María Claret Cultural Center and Animated Mission, institution sponsoring the contest. For the first time the event, which usually receives pieces in varied techniques, decides to grant its top prize to a photograph. The work entitled Fe (Faith) was chosen from among a catalog of more than seventy pieces received, from the provinces of Havana, Mayabeque, Matanzas, Sancti Spiritus, Camaguey, Las Tunas, Holguin, Santiago de Cuba and Guantanamo. The second place was won by the digital photo INRI (from the series El peso de la vide) by Sancti Spiritus´ Álvaro José Brunet Fernández . La Piedad llora by Juan Ramón Navarro Iglesias and Jorge Bonzón Henríquez (Santiago de Cuba), appropriation of La Pietá by Michelangelo Buonarrotti in a model of electro polished aluminum sheets, finished third. The mentions went to La Luz del Mundo (techno-art / sculptural object) by Maikel Moret Santana, from Havana; from the series El capítulo de los vaca sagrada: La pureza de los ideales (oil...

She is in front of me right now. His leotard seemed so simple and her look so serene that I left my eyes on her. I follow her while taking impulse; she leans on the vaulting horse and turns. I judge her from the stands: the landing is perfect. She also shines on the floor exercises: a real concert. The crowd erupts. When announcing her age, I thought it was a mistake. Ten years, the announcer repeats. She is only ten and is already the best Cuban gymnast! Her name curiously gathered two of my favorite singer: Annia Linares and Omara Portuondo. Maybe that's why I noticed immediately: Annia Portuondo. She will win the title of Cuba on seven occasions. I was not surprised when, two years later, in the Central American and Caribbean Games in Mexico in 1990, the girl won five gold and one bronze medals, including the all around event. The headline of Granma newspaper of November 26, 1990, was "Annia already left her name engraved on gymnastics", while Bohemia magazine of November 30th published an article called "Annia and her magic ". I read anything published on her. I became his fan. She was very serious...

--Mamita ! Mamita!!! I screamed loudly at Armando Mestre Sports Palace, in Santiago de Cuba, in 1983. I shouted again and the stands seconded the claim in a chorus: --We want Mamita!!! A call to the legend: Mercedes ¨Mamita¨ Pérez , member of the world champion team in 1978. The women's volleyball match between Cuba and United States was being dominated by the visitors thanks to the excellence of their players. Mamita´s magic was needed urgently. The northern sextet had in its ranks the giant Flora Hyman, the short Rita Crocker, the efficient Debbie Green ... The setter drew the ball in the air and the court trembled after every American spike. The previous year, at the World Cup in Peru, they had won the bronze medal; but their rise had not stopped. Cuba was facing , perhaps, the best team in the world. Eugenio George, the Cuban coach, announced a change. Now Mamita is going to play, I thought... but instead of Mercedes Pérez, the player who appeared in the court was an inexperienced sixteen-years-old girl, not even very tall, with an unknown name: Mireya Luis. Spellbound by the game I was witnessing, nothing on her impressed me. I...

Rolando Diaz is a man of islands. He is a man of roads. He is a man of cinema. In these circumstances he has been submerged in many ways. The film ¨Los pájaros tirándole a la escopeta¨ is like an amulet under his skin; but his devotion for the cinema did not stop there; no stinging, or distance has stopped him. The past, the present emerge from his own creator threads… If taking a look at his work as a documentary filmmaker, screenwriter and director, to the stage of the creative groups formed in Cuban cinema, what works and what colleagues would you keep? They were contradictory years, but with a lot of creative illusion. My approach to Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, greatly enriched my way of seeing cinema and life. Rocinante Group is something I never forget, especially my deeper bond with Juan Carlos Tabio and Rapi Diego -my preferred within the Creation Group, without ever leaving my brothers in Cuban cinema; Daniel Díaz Torres and Fernando Perez who belonged to another group. I want to highlight the important role played by the then president of the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC by its Spanish acronym), Julio García Espinosa, promoter of...

Those who call them crazy, they're crazy. They dance in their own planet. They have returned to the streets of Santiago the grace and the innocence. He took two cans of paint in a dumpster and armed the battery. With two sticks became a master. Tam,tam,tam! She sails in her infinite improntu. Tam,tam,tam! She arches, stretching to the wind the threadbare scarf of Isadora. The world stops its crazy run, spins on its axis, it is clustered. The world becomes strange, stunned, long. And falling around she are the magical coins, as in the stories. They descend from the Puerto Boniato from a torn mountain home. They come down with sunrise in their pockets. No need lights or stage: they take any corner, any park. Applause is as exorcisms. Alexis and Maricel do not resemble their common names, their mortal names. Someone came to baptize them as Sacrifice and Joy. Do not look for who is who, no response. Life bore them. They dance in their own planet.

"He is intuitive and original, and could belong either to the American tradition of experimental jazz, Afro-Cuban religious culture or contemporary music. He has courage, soul and memory. "Thus was written by Ben Ratliff in The New York Times on Cuban musician David Virelles. His phonogram Continuum was chosen 2012 album of the year by that publication. He has just presented the CD Mboko: Sacred Music for Piano, Two Basses, Drumset and Biankoméko Abakuá with ECM from Munich. He is the first Cuban included in label through which catalog the Mecca of world jazz has passed. David Virelles González was born in Santiago de Cuba city on November 10, 1983 and he is today an emerging international jazz legend. Cuba goes with him on his prodigious hands, on each beat. Boldness, soul and memory Not everyone has the privilege of having at home a composer and troubadour as José Aquiles or teacher and flautist like Mercedes González, your parents. You seemed predestined. How much did they influence on your vocation? How do you remember those early years? It was a huge influence because of the musical atmosphere developed at home. My mom took me to the Vocational Art School where...

One day I no longer had anything to cook with, or where to look for firewood. Maria Cureaux moved around her apartment. Her mambi ancestors, her French-Haitian ancestors moved. The board appeared as a lifeline. The next morning, she looked slyly at a chair that was loose. Wood looked good... At the makeshift kitchen with two bricks and a small balcony on the third floor, the whole dining set, and the bed burned and she even emptied the bookcase. The Decameron and The Lady of the Camellias served to soften the peas. Two little cans of rice, twice as much water and the effect of the miracle of getting steam fill the pot. It was an emergency procedure known as microjet rice. Maria Cureaux Savigne says it with an overwhelmed smile. Now she can, but in the early nineties; with four children to care for and a husband working away, she was in no mood for some hilarity. The so-called "special period" came at the time after the fall of the socialist bloc and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The economy bottomed out. Cuban ingenuity shot sky-high. Maria Cureaux became an expert. When there were no shoes, she found...

The roulettes in Las Vegas showed him new ways of seeing the tops and kites of his childhood in Guantánamo. That is what Manuel Augusto Martínez Lemus says, who since 1995 lives in that city of the American West ... but is not strange to meet him now in Miami or New York, now in Madrid or Mexico City. He has stated he was born on December 29th “of an indeterminate and oblique year." No one can take him out of there. Right now he threatens to "perpetrate against the community and the environment, publishing verses" in Yo, Augusto under the editorial care of the exquisite Mireya Piñeiro. Although he has to his credit the publication on American soil of Tropismos (2005) and Letters of Hate, love and other trifles (2011), although it has been included in Epigrams (Santiago de Cuba, 1994) Anthology of Cuban Poetry in exile (Valencia, Spain, 2011), his researches and moods are scattered in publications in Spain, the US and Latin America. Founder of Entre Rios Editions, editor of the online La Peregrina Magazine and assistant editor of Linden Lane Magazine, a long standing publication of Hispanic culture in the United States, Lemus is mostly a...

That boy with dreadlocks looks at me. Books, books, books! He shouts, and I get scared. Who is him? Someone asked behind me. Where is he from? That's what I find out later. Now he is a live wire, a spirit that dominates the public though his gaze. Yasser Alberto Cortiña Martínez (Santiago de Cuba, 1985) is an actor, orator, critic and theater director. His student and professional life has been meteoric: theatre studies at the Higher Institute of the Arts, staging of the play Jesus Christ Super Star, approach to the mythical Berta Martinez, creation of La Araña Teatro group... And in Chile: script, acting and art direction in the film ¨Revelaciones, ¨ meeting with Pedro de la Barra company, belonging to Antofagasta University, participation at the Zicosur Theatre Festival, professor of an adolescent company. His steps are urgent, but the road is long. Yasser learns, writes, knits, and grows. In the longest country in the world, this young Cuban artist feels the salt on his own face but he never gets deviated: his scenario is life. "A sweetness as gentle humanity is spread in our guts when just saying Cuban," José Martí wrote. I will use these words...

Holding a world record is going into sports history, as the name is forever inscribed in the books. And if it comes to athletics, the distinction becomes especially since many consider it "the king of sports". In that absolute elite group there is a Cuban. On July 27, 1993 in the Spanish city of Salamanca, he broke the world record. Height: 2, 45 meters. Specialty: High Jump. Name: Javier Sotomayor Sanabria. Date of birth: October 13, 1967 Place of Birth: Limonar, Matanzas. In fact this was his third world record outdoors. Before, he had achieved the 2.43 meters in Salamanca too on September 8, 1988. Something special was there. No wonder in that city they have renamed the stadium with his name. When on July 29, 1989 he jumped 2, 44 meters in San Juan, Puerto Rico, a group of his teammates rushed to congratulate him. The judges had to protect the rod before the overflowing enthusiasm. The newspaper said that a human being had jumped the equivalent of a football goal. I had the privilege of seeing him in his first world record, in the youth category. Memorial Barrientos, Santiago de Cuba, February 23, 1986 was his birth to...

He tied his ponytail with the first ribbon he saw and in a flash, retraced the streets of Santiago de Cuba. He stopped to pass through Enramadas Street, full of stained glasses, to stare at the brightness of the mannequins, while other eyes observe his sandals and his bag. He greeted the saleswomen like old friends, and moved his hair, as if also shaking the curses he had to face. It is said he wanted to look like La Doña -María Félix, of course- and wore makeup to look resemblance to those big eyes devouring the screen. He collected her pictures from magazines and pasted them in an album he always carry with him. He was already an old man when I became aware of his existence. Nobody run behind him already. Nobody yelled faggot or queer at him. They called him Patricia... a name that reached the status of synonym. He had beaten homophobic people when that word did not appear in dictionaries, when derision toward homosexuals was part of the national folklore. He n ever flinched: he had made ​​his own planet and lived in it naturally. It was another matter that some people to knock at his...

It just takes one step to walk into a new century. Go up the narrow stairs, by the Cathedral, in the same atrium,in the heart of the eastern Cuban province of Santiago de Cuba. The place is characterized by elegant coffered ceilings, inclined and intertwined joists, traditional tiles. Under its Spanish-Mudejar architectonic legacy this place is unique: it is the Monsignor Enrique Pérez Serantes Arquidiocesano Museum, which was created in 1963. Every object there has a story of life or glory, both inseparable. One of the most precious objects at the Museum is the Santo Ecce Homo, an oil painting over wood by Colombian painter Francisco Antonio. The image of Jesus is tied up to a column after having been flagellated. Painted in Cartagena de Indias, it arrived in Cuba in 1610 and it is considered to be the oldest religious painting in Cuba. In addition, there is its miracle nature. Precentor Juan Lizando y Luyando states that more than once he has noticed the painting was sweating blood. In fact, the solemn ceremony of Santo Ecce Homo began by the midst of the 17th century. The Crist in this cedar planks is only 14 inches, but it still preserves...

“In the Caribbean we have lot of sun and clarity. Caribbeans are filled with Eros, even in their way of sitting. We are not Europeans, nor Asians, nor Africans; we are a wonderful mixture and that has to be portrayed in dancing. We can never forget our voluptuousness, our light”, stated the Cuban National Dance 2001 Award, Eduardo Rivero Walker. He perfectly knew what he was talking about. He danced all over the world and he showed it in famous pieces Súlkary and Okantomí, by the Danza del Caribe Theater Company, in 1988, in Santiago de Cuba. Ogun’s machete and Chango’s ax clashed in the struggle in the piece Suite Yoruba. The sharp metal shone. Rivero’s arm is the branch of a tree moved by a hurricane. The documentary Historia de un ballet (1962) by José Massip marked that jump as an iconic image of Cuban dancing. Perhaps his love for cave paintings from the Sahara, wood sculptures, masks about the times of free Africans, prior to the disgrace of slavery, dates back to that epoch. Dancing is not about muscles, but the spirit. It is not just a technical performance, but a whole creative process where research is the...

- What do you think?, asked the hostess to Spanish essayist Don Federico de Onis, while he showed a legitimate lace bedspread, bought for the guest room. The first thing she will do upon arrival is to lie on it with her muddy shoes. The hostess laughs, always jealous of the details, not knowing that prophecy would be fulfilled, although otherwise. Dulce Maria Loynaz receives in her home in 19 and E, in the heart of Havana, Gabriela Mistral. Time has passed, it is true; more visit becomes increasingly mythical, more memorable. The Chilean reached Havana in 1953 for the celebrations for the centenary of the birth of José Martí. She had accepted the invitation to stay at the mansion of Vedado, since she and Dulce had met before, off the coast of Italy. She was not yet accompanied by the aura of the Cervantes Prize she received in 1992, already an old woman, but Loynaz was no stranger. She had published Canto a la mujer estéril, Carta de Amor a Tuk-Ank-Amen and the lyrical novel Garden; but then it was a privilege to receive the only Nobel Prize for Literature in Latin America. Thus, she arranged everything. And the...

He has designed signs, wedding suits, carnival customs, show customs, picture hats, caps, tiaras, scenography, floats. He has worked with cloth, threads, wood, metal, plastic, and leather, cardboard. He has left his imprint in theaters, weddings and passacaglias… but he is not done yet. Right now, without using a single nail, he has raised the totems for the Santiago de Cuba carnival in its squares and main streets. Polychrome dolls, masks, devices hanging in the air, light, make up one of the most famous popular festivities in and out of Cuba. “I have always said that the work of designers and producers in the show business is as hard as cutting down sugar cane. People say pieces are beautiful after they see it finished, but behind all that there are huge efforts”, stated José de Jesús Limia Castillo, better known as Pepin. At Inclan warehouses, with his implacable aunt Noemi, he drank all in one go fantasy and by the age of 16 won his first recognition in the design of showcases. In order to achieve glamour and shine, he decided to cut out labels of Hatuey beer. The early 60’s were tough years. Pepin broke the glass! This phrase...

Soon plans won’t be needed, or architects in Cuba, at least in what they referred to the design of the doors in their buildings. The practice is turning them into a vacant job. They are determined to plan them, in placing them in the right places, to allow convenient access and easy removal, beat the heat in the Tropics, and alleviate the queues that we usually live in almost any errand. But ... the directive caste at different levels is determined to ignore them. The bathroom doors are the favorite candidates. Boarded up, sealed, nailed, closed. May be the same in a theater that in a school. It's a philosophy: shut it instead of fixing it. In the interprovincial bus fleet of brand new the Chinese Yutong that circulate throughout the long, narrow Cuban geography, same thought prevails: close before cleaning. No matter that the toilets work. You cannot use them. If need is too strong... you will have to get off. No matter if it is a cafe or a shop; if it has artificial climate or not; if there are physically six, four or two doors. You will face a pandemic: the only door that opens, you can...