The Café Teatro Bertolt Brech (calle 13 No. 259) is the venue for the group Synthesis, on the Saturday evenings of December 19 and 26, at 11 p.m. Synthesis journeys between new age, jazz and rock. In them, their African roots find a fine contemporary exponent.
Read MoreThe group Sexto Sentido performs Saturday, December 19, from 10:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. at the La Zorra y el Cuervo jazz club (calle 23 y O, in the Vedado district). The quartet frequently collaborates with artists like Steve Coleman, Pablo Milanes and Silvio Rodriguez, and have worked with contemporary musical producers such as Guy Sigswworth and Norman Cook.
Read MoreAn entire generation of Cubans spent afternoons and evenings at the Creative Youth Center, but not only with Nos y Otros. It was there that we also sang to the rhythm of guitars, read poetry, had exhibitions and heard theatrical monologues. It was, like its name implies, the perfect place for young artists who hardly had opportunities in theaters or the “grand” cultural centers. Today it no longer exists. Now it’s a rum museum.
Read MorePepe gets up every day at five in the morning so he can use the bathroom before everyone else in the house does (three adults and a child), and he leaves before eight. His work, a cafeteria for construction workers, is four or five bus stops from his home. Most of the time he prefers to walk and gets to the job by nine o’clock at the latest.
Read MoreSinger Maurin Garcia performs at the Bertolt Brecht Café Theater (Linea and J Streets in Vedado) on Friday night December 18 at 11:00 p.m. Maurin Garcia and her guests invite us to enjoy ballads and boleros that she knows how to interpret only so well. Garcia’s concerts take place every Friday night at this newly renovated venue.
Read MoreThe versatile singer Osdalgia and guests play at the Jardin de la Musica (F and 15th Streets in Vedado) on Saturday Dec. 26 at 7:00 p.m. Osdalgia -a singer of rumba, “feeling”-style boleros and salsa- is one of the most multifaceted of our songstresses of popular music. Her CD “La culebra” is a good example of this.
Read MoreThe Rock band Tesis de Menta plays at La Pergola (13th Street / between 2nd and 4th, Vedado) on Saturday Dec. 26 at 5:00 p.m. Tesis de menta is a very young group in which come together experienced musicians like guitarist Roberto Diaz, the director of the progressive rock band Anima Mundi; and drummer Osvaldo Vieites, a musician with more than ten years of experience in the thrash-death metal group Agonizer.
Read MoreThe Havana Film Festival awards were announced on Saturday afternoon and the winning movies will get an extra showing on Sunday. “La teta asustada” a Peru-Spain co-production by director Claudia Llosa won the first prize for a full-length fiction film. The top prize for a documentary went to “La perdida” (Argentina-Spain) by Enrique Gabriel and Javier Angulo. The winning short fiction film went to “Para pedir perdon” (Brazil) by Ibere Carvalho.
Read MoreI didn’t think too many people would be interested in seeing a movie in which a man extinguishes other people’s joy of living. I was mistaken; there was hardly an empty seat. Are there really that many people in Havana who get excited by an issue so seemingly negative?
Read MoreA night of golden boleros takes place on Saturday December 12 at 9:00 p.m. at the Huron Azul café located at the Cuban Writers and Artists Association (UNEAC) at 17th and F Streets in Havana. Time: 9:00 pm. Old-guard crooners meet under the direction of songsters Alden Knight and Natacha Diaz to recall other forms of the orchestration and interpretation of the bolero.
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