Fifty Pablos in a collection
Pablo Milanés’ Artistic Office, in a collaboration with Artex and Bis Music Records Company, present the artist’s most complete collection that reissues all of his albums, starting from his first phonogram in 1974.
On the occasion of the troubadour’s 74th birthday, the collection Pablo Milanés Discography, with 50 titles numbered and chronologically ordered, treasures more than 600 songs and 7 hours of video in 53 audio CDs and 5 DVDs. All original covers, record notes, technical data, photos and data from the recording files are rescued. Each album also includes every song’s lyrics, corrected and edited.
The Cuban composer, guitarist and singer, Marta Valdés, gives prestige to this reissue with her valuable introductory words that lead an 88-page printed guide, summarizing the artist’s entire record production with fundamental information about each album: title, year, featuring artists, themes, authors and singers.
A container box protects these 50 discs in jewel case format and shows in its interior a timeline with the members of the Pablo Milanés group and their recorded albums.
The collection, as well as the individual discs, will be available at Artex stores in Cuba since the first days of March, 2017.
Salsa until Sunday
The main orchestras of popular dance music in Cuba lead the 2nd Havana Salsa Festival. The event, which began on Tuesday, February 21, with presentations and dance workshops at the Comodoro Hotel, aims to consolidate the taste of this musical event among Cubans and foreign visitors passing through the Island’s capital these days.
Van Van, Bamboleo, Paulo FG and his Elite and NG La Banda, are some of the groups convened by the composer and pianist Maikel Blanco, head of the Salsa Mayor orchestra and President of this festival.
The Havana Salsa Festival will conclude on Sunday 26 at 9:00 pm in Havana Metropolitan Park with a great concert performed by Alexander Abreu and Havana D’Primera, although the lovers of the genre will be able to enjoy other orchestras and groups during the coming weekend.
This Friday at 11:10 pm Pupy and los que Son Son will present, while on Saturday since 9:00 pm the Anacaonas, Tosco and NG la Banda, as well as Maykel Blanco and His Salsa Mayor will share the stage of the Metropolitan Park. On Sunday, before the closing ceremony, Tania Pantoja and his orchestra and Adalberto Álvarez and his Son will lighten the night.
Two in one
The Piano Masters Michael Dabroski (violin), from USA, and Cuban Ulises Hernandez (piano) will offer a selection of violin and piano sonatas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at the St. Philip Neri Oratory in Old Havana, this Saturday after 4:00 p.m. The concert will have the participation of the pianist Mayte Aboy as a guest artist.
PROGRAM
I
Sonatas for violin and piano W. Mozart
Sonata Kv.306
Sonata Kv.296
II
Sonata Kv.301
Sonata Kv.481
Music for dancing
The orchestra El Chispa y los cómplices (Spark and the Accomplices) will perform on Monday since 11:00 pm at the Turquino Cabaret of Habana Libre Hotel.
Wil Campa will be on Sunday, from 11:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. in the Miramar House of Music ( 35 Ave, corner to 20 St., Miramar).
A Cuban-Yiddish opera to be performed by its first time in Havana
A Cuban-Yiddish opera will be performed by its first time at the Arenal Theater in Havana on March 3. Hatuey: Memories of Fire was composed by Frank London, member of the Klezmatics musical group, with Ashkenazi influences. The piece is based on a poem about the Taino chief, who resisted the invaders from Spain in the colonial period, and it was written in Yiddish more than 80 years ago, by Oscar Pinis, a Ukrainian refugee in Cuba.
Hatuey: Memories of fire, which was musically reformed by London to host the guitar ensemble, the bass, three keyboardists and five percussionists, will be performed by the Opera de la Calle Company. London said about the latter:
“I was willing to change much of my conception about the piece in order to have the experience of working with them. They are so young, so enthusiastic. This material is so far beyond from what they normally perform, that it extends its boundaries in many ways. They also do it very well.”
Camagüey to 32 beat
Beat 32, the first electronic music party in Camagüey, will be celebrated from February 23 to February 26 with the participation of several national DJs and the hosting of the Hermanos Saíz Association. The event aims to contribute to the diffusion of the electronic genre in that region of the country and some of the best exponents of Cuban electronic music, such as Electrozona and Xander Black, will participate in it.
According to the website Cocuyo Magazine, the presence of Daniela Vazques, ChapaX3MO, Seycel, Muerto, Leyo, Muñek, Joker, Miler, Nergal, Richar, Xander Black and Electrozona is announced, also including the VJs 2D and Sant.
Thirty Retazos (Pieces)
The Dance-Theater Retazos Company, directed by the teacher and choreographer Isabel Bustos, turns 30. The group will be performing a program including the premiere of the piece Tiempos de Arena (Times of Sand), a Bustos’ choreography to celebrate three decades of artistic work, on Friday and Saturday at 8:30 pm and Sunday at 5:00 pm, at the Martí Theater.
PROGRAMMING
Saturday 25
Retazos en el tiempo (Pieces in Time). Choreography: Isabel Bustos
(Small performances that make up a spectacle of contrasts in a fan of color and emotions. A trip to the memory that leads us to dreamlike spaces, where emotion and gestures take the pulse of our intimate and philosophical universe)
Tiempos de Arena (Times of Sand). Choreography: Isabel Bustos
Sunday 26
Solamente una vez (Only once), with the music by Agustín Lara. Choreography: Isabel Bustos
Tiempos de Arena (Times of Sand). Choreography: Isabel Bustos
The Germanic legend continues in the Havana Great Theater
Gisselle, a classic of the world-wide dance, performed by the Cuban National Ballet, continues its season in the Havana Great Theater Alicia Alonso. This dance inspired by a popular Germanic legend collected by Heinrich Heine will be on the stage, with choreography by the prima ballerina assoluta on the original of Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot, on February 24 and 25, at 8:30 p.m. and February 26, at 5:00 p.m.
The dance school at the Mella Theater
The Fernando Alonso National Ballet School will present a concert program at the Mella Theater. The functions are scheduled to Friday 24 and Saturday 25 at 8:30 p.m. and Sunday 26 at 5:00 pm, with the artistic direction by the teacher Ramona de Saá.
Ten million… in US dollars?
Ten million, the play that celebrated in 2016 the twenty years of Argos Teatro group, directed by Carlos Celdrán, arrives at the scenes of the United States. The piece, in which Celdrán starts from his own biography to recreate the events of the 10 million harvest and the Embassy of Peru in 1980, will be presented in New York on March 29 and 30 and on Miami’s stages, March 24, 25 and 26.
“Ten million is an interpretation of the past, of its darkness, of the uncertain and incongruous of the past. Of those that we were and that we no longer understand. The many others that we were and that we buried to survive. Each day we reinvent our biographies and forget the former one in a collective amnesia that looks at the present without any links to what we thought before. I could try to define Ten million as a story about oblivion, about the wasted memory of what we were.
Ten million may be all these things, but most of all it is the fabric that actors have made of what was written just as a babbling exercise. They, with their passion, have lifted that past and have come back to live and to think. They have made possible, at least in the theater, to have a present where all the past live. “(Taken from the Camagüey National Theater Festival program).
King Lear in the Cuban way
The Teatro D’Dos Company, directed by Julio César Ramírez, takes The King Lear Passion to the scene. The Cuban version, from the original by William Shakespeare, does not make references to the Middle Age but contextualizes itself, it gets modernized in its essences and it lands in our current environment.
Written around 1605, according to some researches, Shakespeare’s text addresses the filial ingratitude as its main theme, but also deals with topics such as old age and madness. The functions of The King Lear Passion will be from Friday to Sunday at 8:30 in the Raquel Revuelta Cultural Center, located on Línea St., corner to B, in Vedado.
Susana and the Bala Perdida (Lost Bullet)
Bala perdida, a personal exhibition by Susana Pilar, was inaugurated this Friday at 6:00 p.m. in the Villa Manuela Gallery.
In the history of humanity, social pressure has been one of the surreptitious motives that has strongly modified the opinion, behavior and participation of the individual in society. Its existence comes from the control mechanisms exercised by power. Contemporary artistic practices have also tried to subvert these relations of power, not only from their representation, but also from the action they produce.
Bala Perdida is about the actions/performances made by Susana Pilar, the reactions of the public, the reproduction and the game with the documented actions, thought as a new action awaiting for its receiver, and the physical law that remembers: every action generates a reaction.
Color Puzzle
From 17 February, the collective exhibition Puzzle is at the Génesis Gallery (26 St. # 109 between 1st St. and 3rd St., Miramar, Playa). The art critic Estela Ferrer points out about the exhibition:
“The artists of Puzzle feel a special attachment for the landscape. Of course, individuality emerges in each poetic: in Jorge Lucas Pereda, achieving the conformation of the picture from the conjunction of several fragments or the visual games of the reflection instead; on the other hand, Rolando Galindo works in the representation of the sea, while taking his geographical horizon as a reference, and Ariel Corrales reflects on the relationship between people and space from the provocations of the titles; meanwhile Chiara Tomassone, who is in a frank period of learning, goes between the legacies of several pictorial movements, the teachings of his master, and exploits to the maximum the innate restlessness from her age, that leads her to represent several corners of the island and from her native country.
“Puzzle is an approach to two traditional genres of artistic historiography, but not some of the less attended. Four artists, from their subjectivity, suggest you to seek your keys to analyze their speech, to be seduced by the wide range of color and, in the end, find the clues to decipher the codes that make up this puzzle.”
Fanguito eStudio invites
Fanguito eStudio invites to Game Jam, an event led by Thorsten S. Wiedemann, founder and director of A MAZE; festival of global reference in the field of independent and alternative games -Playful Media-, which explores the digital culture and virtual reality.
The objective of making the first Game Jam in Cuba is directly connected with Fanguito eStudio’s line of work, which has consisted in introducing different elements of contemporary digital culture in the peculiar context of Cuban society.
What is a Game Jam?
The expression game jam is composed of the English words game and jam (in reference to jam session). A jam session is a musical performance characterized for being improvised in its most part. In the same way, game jams are events in which developers, artists, designers and musicians experiment with new ideas without any previous “test” and with the aim of creating prototypes.
Penetrations of Frank… in Artis 718
The exhibition Penetraciones (Penetrations) from the artist Frank Martínez is open to the public in the Artis Gallery, located on 7th St., corner to 18, Miramar, Playa.
Dominican sequences in La Rampa Cinema
The Dominican Republic film week will take place in Havana until Sunday 26. This show from the Caribbean country brings some of its awarded films including Dólares de arena (Sand Dollars), starring Geraldine Chaplin and contestant in 37th Havana Latin American Film Festival. Projections will be at La Rampa Cinema (23 St., corner to O), always at 6:00 p.m.
Saturday 25
6:00 pm: SAND DOLLARS / Dominican Republic, Mexico, Argentina / 2014 / 85′ / Dir. Laura Amelia Guzmán, Israel Cárdenas / Geraldine Chaplin, Yanet Mojica, Ricardo Ariel Toribio / Drama
Noelí, a young Dominican, travels every afternoon to Las Terrenas beaches. There, along with her partner, he looks for a way to take advantage and earn some dollars at the expense of some of the hundreds of tourists that go around the place. Among her occasional clients, Noelí keeps one, specially: Anne, a Frenchwoman of mature age who has found in the island an ideal refuge where to spend his last years. Noelí’s boyfriend pretends to be his brother and draws up a plan in which Noelí travels to Paris with the French and sends him money every month. For Noeli, the relationship with Anne is primarily based on convenience, although feelings become ambiguous as the departure time is looming.
Sunday 26
6:00 pm: DETECTIVE Willy / Dominican Republic / 2015 / Dir. José María Cabral / FaustoMata, Denise Quiñones, Anthony Alvarez, CrystalJiménez, Hector Aníbal, Kenny Grullón, Manuel Chapuseaux, Christian Álvarez, Josue Guerrero, Patricia Ascuasiati and Enrique Chao / Comedy
Willy Echevarría is a policeman in a small town in Dominican Republic. He is also a fan of the classic protagonists of noir cinema and dreams to be like them. After being fired in a failed operation, Willy steals one last chance from fate to fix everything, to be assigned to investigate the mysterious theft of a valuable artefact of the Dominican historical heritage.
Mariconchi is on the corner
The popular show La esquina de Mariconchi (Mariconchi’s corner), starring actor and comedian Orlando Manrufo, will take place on Thursday March 2 at the America Theater.
FAC in synthesis
On Sunday, February 26 at 8:00 p.m., Cuban Art Factory (FAC) reserves the spaces of the Nave 3 for the exhibition of video arts and documentaries from Vestiphobia, whose exhibitions will be Friday and Saturday at 10:00 p.m. and Sunday at 9:30 pm, in the same location. Two hours later, it invites to the concert by Amadeo Roldán Jazz Band in Nave 4. Formed three years ago by young students of this prestigious Cuban music school, led by Enrique Mario Rodríguez, the group was recently presented in New Orleans, United States, as part of an educational and cultural exchange.
