4th edition of Havana World Music
The 4th edition of Havana World Music (HWM), sponsored by the Cuban Institute of Music and the National Center of Popular Music, takes place from Thursday, March 23 to Sunday 26 in the Grand Metropolitan Park of Havana and the Cuban Art Factory (FAC).
With artistic direction by Cuban singer-songwriter Eme Alfonso, HWM has been celebrated since 2014 and in three previous editions has brought together more than 20,000 people and artists such as Fuel Fandango, Sargento García, Los Van Van or the Mexican Institute of Sound.
In this edition, Cuban Art Factory will host the workshops, exhibitions, DJ sessions and the opening and closing parties of the festival, while the Grand Metropolitan Park will feature two scenarios for more than 100 artists from Cuban and international bands, new groups, Folklore, performances and workshops.
The group HavanaD’Primera, with its fusion of salsa, funky, Afro Cuban and Latin jazz; and La Flota (The Fleet), made up of artists such as X Alfonso, David Blanco, Ernesto Blanco and Yissy García, are some of the participating Cuban artists. Other national participants will be David Torrens, the revelation voice of jazz, Daymé Arocena, and the group of troubadours La Trovuntivitis.
From the international arena, the French group Lindigo comes from La Réunion Island with a mixture of theatrical performances, traditional instruments and trance. Also, Mexican Dubwiser brings their particular remixes of cumbia, dub, hip hop, funk and reggae with electronics.
The international show is completed by Nightlosers (Romania), Nomadic Massive (Canada), Speed Caravan Trio (Algeria / France), Lady Moscow (Norway) and Wesli (Haiti / Canada).
M talked to OnCuba about the news and the impact of this festival on the musical taste of young people:
Does the event fill gaps or voids of national music?
Let’s not say that it fills a void, but it shows another perspective: how it is done in the rest of the world. There are many countries where festivals of this type are developed, we are not the first and is a funny way to discover the real thing with a new proposal. I like to say that we bring something new to the same.
How could this festival affect the Cubans’ good musical taste, especially young people’s one?
Doing it well, having a rigorous show, good professionals behind the event. It is the only way we have to ensure having it the right way, and I believe the event will bring a lot of musical culture to the participants.
We will also promote the space, the Ecological Park, as a reference for events, and we seek to develop the local economy, even in a very small way. It will be a small contribution, but we intend to contribute by promoting events that are economically useful. We will have another perspective on the subject in the future.
What’s new for this edition of HWM?
The event has grown a lot since other editions: we have two stages this year working in parallel because it was not enough with just one. We also plan the workshops or intensive workshops, where the public will have the opportunity to ask artists directly about their music. They will be able to talk, interact and show their instruments.
We made a selection depending on the schedules because there are some of the artits that will perform in concert very late. For the workshops, we prioritize those musicians that are more distant from our culture, as we believe. For example, there will be a Bulgarian singer, Vlada Tomova – who has written music for “Dora, the Explorer” – and will speak about Bulgarian folklore, which is unknown for us but it is a very important style for classical music.
We have the opportunity of musicians from different cultures explaining to us about different musical phenomena. There will be also guests from Romania (Nightlosers), Algeria (Speed Caravan). We believe that the workshops will be real exchanges with the public.
A party for Lidis
Cuban singer Lidis Lamorú Febles, exponent of children’s music, will be in concert this March 25 at 5:00 p.m. in the Mella Theater. With general direction by Ana Belén Zamora, Lidis will have as guests the Coro Diminuto (Tiny Choir), the Abril Group, the company Paso a Paso (Step by step), the Zapatillas de Cristal (Cristal Shoes) project and the dance chair of the Cuban National Ballet.
Voice in countertenor
Countertenor Lesby Bautista will perform his first concert in Cuba, tomorrow, Saturday, at 4:00 pm in the Saint Philip Neri Oratory.
Fête Galante is the title of a presentation that includes a repertoire of French concert songs from the 19 and 20 centuries. Organized by the National Lyric Theater of Cuba, directed by master Roberto Chorens, the concert becomes recognition to the winner of the first prize in the international contest of countertenors, sponsored by the Leo Brouwer Office.
Lesby Bautista, who also won the public’s vote and the trophy for the best interpretation of the French song, with texts by Paul Verlaine, will take on his recital works by Charles Gounod, André Caplet, Reynaldo Hahn, Claude Debussy, Erik Satie, Jules Massenet, Francis Poulenc and Maurice Ravel.
Accompanied by the pianist Yanner Rascón, the young will have as guest the flute player Alberto Rosas, the cellist Alejandro Martínez and Patricia Hernandez, first dancer of the Prodanza Center, everything with the artistic direction by Daniel Noriega.
Haiti returns to the symphony
After several years the Haitian maestro Tido Dejan will return to the podium of the National Symphony Orchestra, whose presentation will be on Sunday, March 26 at 11:00 am in the Covarrubias Hall of the National Theater of Cuba. As part of the musical evening, Dejan has included interesting and little heard works by Johann Strauss II, Antonín Dvořák and Francesco Luigi in the program.
Program
The Bat (Die Fledermaus) Operetta Overture by Johann Strauss II
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in A Minor, Op.16 by Edvard Grieg
Scherzo capriccioso, Op.66 by Antonín Dvořák
Ave Maria by Francesco Luigi
La Valse, choreographic poem for orchestra by Maurice Ravel
Soloist: Micheline Laudun Denis (Pianist – Haiti)
Director: Master Tido Dejan (Haiti)
Leyendas.com, seven years in the musical scene
The group Leyendas.com will celebrate its seventh anniversary, this Saturday 25 at 7:00 pm, in the theater hall of the National Museum of Fine Arts.
For Juan Carlos Bonet, his artistic director, Leyendas.com is a project that, in six years, has sought in the Cuban repertoire those great authors that marked an era in popular music. He says his intentions have always been clear: “doing something different” that highlights them from similar groups. It is also true that there are many orchestras that have traditional music in their repertoire in Cuba today. The most relevant is the Buena Vista Social Club, legitimized in the international stages by the talent of its members and by its legendary disc, winner of the Grammy award in 1998.
“We wanted to make a group in which each of its members could show their virtuosity and our musicians have a leading role on the scene,” explains Bonet.
Saturday to read
The usual space Saturday of the book, that takes place on the wooden street of Old Havana, will present, this March 25 at 11:00 am, the titles The National Museum of Fine Arts in the cultural policy of the Cuban State (1940-1961), by Hilda María Alonso González and Healthy housing, environment and health, of the publishing house Nuevo Milenio, presented by Carlos Barceló.
182 of Conjunto
The Latin American theater magazine Conjunto will be presented this Friday at 8:00 a.m. in the Tito Junco Hall of the Bertolt Brecht Cultural Center, prior to the function of The Mirror by Ludi Theater Company. The actor and director Osvaldo Doimeadiós will launch the number 182 in which eleven theater directors will be protagonists of a wide range of themes, creative procedures and perspectives of their groups.
The article of the critic and professor Osvaldo Cano about the 16th edition of the Theater Festival of Camagüey; a dossier about the presence of Odin Teatret in Cuba; the essay The sanctity of the fiction by Eugenio Barba, created in the context of the premiere of The tree and an interview with the actress Julia Varley are among the proposals that brings this new edition of the Latin American theater magazine.
Other texts that can be found in that issue are the conference The Theater of Reciprocity, by actor Kai Bredholt, a review of the show demonstration of Jan Ferslev’s Orpheus, the actor musician and notable reflections on group theater experiences by Colombian directors Cristóbal Peláez and Diego Fernando Montoya, et al.
A theater for Cinderella
On the occasion of the International Day of Theater for Children and Youth, the World Puppet Day and the International Theater Day, to be held on March 20, 21 and 27, respectively, the theater group La Proa will present the play Cinderella in a unique function. The function will be this Saturday at 4:00 pm in the headquarters of La Proa Theater, located in San Ignacio Street #166, between Obispo St. and Obrapía St., in Old Havana, with the authorship by playwright Blanca Felipe, staging by Arneldy Cejas and performances by Natalí Rosabal and Erduyn Maza.
Argos Teatro has Ten million
Argos Teatro will present Ten million, an autobiographical play written and directed by Carlos Celdrán, in the United States on March 24 and 25 in the Miami-Dade County Auditorium in the city of Miami and on March 29 and 30 at the headquarters of Spanish Repertoire in New York.
Ten million is the title that director Carlos Celdrán chooses for the premiere that celebrates the twenty years of Argos Teatro Company. Since the beginning, its founder has been dedicated to offer versions of classic and contemporary texts, to contextualize them in the most immediate Cuban reality and in the personal file of the actors. But this time Celdrán risked more and wrote a text that takes his personal biography as the center of the dramatic action. He represents himself through writing, in a brilliant exercise of dramaturgy and staging. The Author is an evident projection of the director, at different moments of his life, showing the deep confusion that political processes can leave in individuals.
Forty and twenty years to laugh
The comedy show Forty and Twenty, with the special participation of Mariconchi (Orlando Manrrufo) and Churrisco (Octavio Rodríguez), will be perform at the Mella Theater on Friday, 24 and Saturday 25 at 8:30 p.m. and Sunday 26 at 5:00 p.m.
Company Irene Rodríguez in Amaranth
In order to celebrate its fifth anniversary, the Irene Rodríguez Company proposes the world premiere of the show Amaranth at the García Lorca Hall of the Great Theater of Havana Alicia Alonso.
Amaranth (a plant that is said to never wither) is a show created expressly to celebrate the first five years of this grouping. With a very contemporary vision of flamenco, the company will perform choreographic pieces of a high technical-interpretative level, including five world premieres and the revival of The last bagpiper of Havana.
During the presentations, the Great Theater of Havana Alicia Alonso will be set with the essence that 1791 Perfumery of the Office of the Historian of Havana will dedicate to Irene Rodriguez on the occasion of the celebration. The functions will take place from this Friday to Sunday at the usual times of the hall, Friday and Saturday at 8:30 p.m. and Sunday at 5:00 p.m.
Havana in pieces
From Wednesday, March 29 to Sunday, April 2, Havana’s Historic Center will be filled with parades, choreographies and spontaneous presentations on the occasion of the XXII International Dance Festival in Urban Landscapes, Old Havana: City in Movement.
Directed by Professor Isabel Bustos, leader of the Dance-Theater Retazos Company, and with the support of the Office of the Historian of the City of Havana, the Havana Theater Center and the National Council of Performing Arts, the event will be a festival of culture in which there will be samples of visual arts, concerts, workshops and master classes.
Celebrating the 30th anniversary of the foundation of the Dance-Theater Retazos Company, Old Havana: City in Motion reaffirms itself as an encounter that combines the different manifestations of art with the beauty of history, architecture and the design of the city.
Flamenco echoes of a Company
The ECOS Flamenco Company, directed by dancer and choreographer Ana Rosa Meneses, will perform at the Martí Theater on Friday, 24 and Saturday 25 at 8:30 pm and on Sunday, March 26 at 5:00 pm. With the show More than flamenco, the group will have as guests dancers of Cuban Contemporary Dance Company.
Touring ballet
At the Popular Theater Melico Salazar, in San José, Costa Rica, the Cuban National Ballet will be presented this Saturday 25 and Sunday 26, in a double function that includes the second act of Giselle, the suite of Don Quixote and the Pas de deux The corsair, The black swan [pas de deux of the third act of Swan Lake] and Dolls.
The Cuban company will also arrive at the stages of the Presidente Theater, in San Salvador, on Friday, March 31 and Saturday, April 1, with the second act of Giselle, Don Quixote‘s suite and the pas de deux The corsair and Diana and Acteon.
The leading roles of these presentations will be assumed by Anette Delgado, Viengsay Valdés, Sadaise Arencibia, Grettel Morejón, Dani Hernández, Rafael Quenedit, Patricio Revé, Raúl Abreu, Ginett Moncho, Claudia García and Ariel Martínez, supported by soloists and the dance corps of the company.
Music, theater and dance…. In FAC
FRIDAY
9:00 p.m. Dancing Technologies (Second season in FAC)
Theater Dance (Nave 3)
A presentation of the work by French filmmakers Isabell Million and Christophe Haleb.
11:00 p.m. Havana World Music Festival
Concert Hall (Hall 4)
Concert by Canadian band Nomadic Massive.
SATURDAY
9:00 p.m. Collection Triumph. Hair trends in 2017.
Fashion. Theater (Nave 3)
Designer Dorian Carbonell presents a fashion show in which he proposes daring cuts and colors for hair. Spring-Summer 2017 Collection.
11:00 p.m. Havana World Music Festival
Concert Hall (Nave 4)
Concert by the Mexican band Mexican Dubwiser.
SUNDAY
9:00 p.m. The other room. El Público Theater Company, directed by Carlos Díaz
Theater (Nave 3)
A young couple lives in “the other room” of a house inhabited by a lady; the one these young people try to kill to be left alone and solve the eternal problem of housing and independence.
10:00 p.m. Havana World Music Festival
Santiago Feliú Room (Nave 1)
Concert of troubadour Adriana Machado
11:00 p.m. Havana World Music Festival
Concert Hall (Nave 4)
Jam Session of the French group Lindigo
Three in one
At the Visual Arts Development Center, three exhibition projects have been open since March 23.
The collective exhibition Building area is in the Zaguán and Almacén Halls, by the second year students of the visual arts specialization of the Higher Institute of Art (ISA): Lianet Barceló, Enrique A. Cabrera, Miroslav de la Torre, Amalia Espinosa, Flavia Fuentes, Alexander Molina, Eliane A. Padrón, Alberto Rodríguez and Lázaro Saavedra. It proposes a revisionist position from the plurality of the postmodern image.
In the L hall it is presented the exhibition She is worth a thousand thoughts by the artists Humberto Díaz, Orestes Hernández Palacios, Reinier Leyva Novo, Habib Asal, Amy Balkin, Ursula Biemann, Gideon Mendel and Alexandra Meyer. The project is the result of a dialogue between science, socio-cultural research and the plastic arts, which addresses issues related to the environmental crisis and climate change, as well as historical, political and cultural issues associated with these phenomena. The exhibition places art in a critical area, promoting interdisciplinary practices and creating bridges of understanding between different approaches to artistic research.
Also in the Polyvalent Hall it is exhibited The visitor, in which the artist Dania González Sanabria presents works inspired by local histories, dynamics and regional remnants that refer to the immediacy, the temporality, the discovery, the unusual of certain realities and environments for an individual who tries to assimilate and channel all that burden.
The exhibits will be open to the public until April 23, from Tuesday to Saturday between 10:00 am and 5:00 pm, in that capital place located around the corner of San Ignacio St. and Teniente Rey St., Old Square.
Plastic artist against poets
The exhibition Against the poets, by artist Luis E. López Chávez, will be inaugurated this Saturday at the Servando Art Gallery, located at Calle 23, corner to 10 St., Vedado.
An island in baseball
The personal exhibition Cuba en pelota (Cuba in baseball), by plastic artist Luis Enrique Padrón Pérez, has been open in Havana Gallery since 17 March.
“Cuba en pelota” is a sort of caricatured cartography of the Cuban idiosyncrasy in contemporary times. The choteo, declared as the center of the national culture at the height of the first half of the twentieth century by the critic of art and Cuban essay writer, Jorge Mañach, is (re) contextualized as an emblem, trait and sign. Popular culture; icons of a story about the island usually not immortalized by the public discourse, or by monuments, or official rituals of memory; as well as the fictions of a land of renewed mythologies, become the structuring centers of the present sample.
Tamayo already gets us used to that look between cynical and humorous, substrate for an esthetic tax proposal of pop art and American comic. This time he has used techniques that are usual for him like painting, but he has also worked with engraving and installation, in such a way that the technical variety will be a distinguishing note of this personal presentation. From the point of view of a curator, the space has been conceived as personal executor, small sample, an enormous act of intimate memory and swarming. The pieces assault the viewer from the contamination that summons them. Space rushes to abundance. Pride floods the air. Laughter conquers the square; also respect. “Cuba en pelota” is an act of healthy and contagious reverence. “It is the pure passion that transcends the limits of the stadium and envelops us”
Desert in cinemas
Yara, Chaplin and Infanta cinemas present the film Desert, directed by Jonás Cuaron with performances by Gael García Bernal, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Alondra Hidalgo, Diego Cataño and Marco Pérez. The thriller, co-produced between Mexico and France, shows the story of Moisés and other undocumented people who cross on foot a narrow border road between Mexico and the United States.
In search of new opportunities and reuniting with his loved ones, the group is discovered by Sam, an insane vigilante who enjoys eliminating the immigrants. In the midst of the great difficulties of the desert, Sam relentlessly pursues Moisés in a battle in which only the strongest will survive.
Women of success in 12 y 23
This Saturday, March 25 at 3:00 p.m., in the 23 y 12 Cinema, will present the documentary Women… the vital powers of success, by the filmmakers Lizette Vila and Ingrid León. The film traces the history of 25 Cuban women entrepreneurs who show their ability to face and overcome obstacles in the participation and leadership of particular spaces in the current Cuban context.
The projection will serve to support the Orange Day as a symbol of commitment to equal rights and opportunities between genders and in favor of non-violence towards women and girls around the world.
Authors
OnCuba Staff,
OnCuba editorial staff
