Members of Cuba’s National Ballet Company (BNC) – currently on tour in Spain – have approached director Alicia Alonso with an urgent petition calling for improvements in work conditions and denouncing favoritism and irregularities in the handling of the company’s budget. The letter has raised a stir in the Havana cultural world.
Read MoreThis year’s Havana Film Festival includes in its World Cinema section eight dramatic features from Great Britain, three of them directed by Andrea Arnold (Red Road, Fish Tank and Wuthering Heights). The others are III Manors, Sightseeers, West is West, The Angels’ Share and NEDS.
Read MoreMaikel Castillo, known as DKNO (“The Dean”) in the Cuban rap scene, tells us about his interest in the rap genre and about the “consequences of telling the truth without mincing one’s words.” He said he sings about social issues, for the most part, problems around the world.
Read MoreArt has always reflected the most distinctive characteristics of the historical period in which it has been produced. Portraits, landscapes, sea vistas, figurative and abstract pieces: all have invariably sought to capture their times through different styles. My interviewee, painter and tattoo artist Jose Rene Blanco Salermo, paints canvases and human bodies. A dreamer, he also paints souls.
Read MoreThe prominent Cuban musician Juan Formell, director of Los Van Van, will attend the ceremony of the Latin Grammy Awards on November 21, where he will receive the award for Musical Excellence, Prensa Latina reported.
Read MoreThe XVI JoJazz Contest 2013 opens its session today in the Cuban capital until November 17th. Participants up to 30 years of age will compete, and there will be several guest performances, reported Prensa Latina.
Read MoreLast week economist Richard Feinberg presented his latest monograph “Soft Landing in Cuba? Emerging Entrepreneurs and Middle Classes” published by the Brookings Institution, a think-tank in Washington, D.C. In a nutshell, Feinberg recommends that the U.S. abandon regime-change fantasies and instead take a suite of measures to support, encourage, influence and participate in building a prosperous and powerful non-state sector in Cuba.
Read MoreThe moments captured by photographer Sergio Leyva and the sculptures of Alfredo Duquense tell of a reunion among people born in continents far apart, do not even speak the same language, but who nonetheless feel that they are part of the same family. (19 photos)
Read MoreFilmmakers from 10 Latin American countries will compete for the Feature Film Coral Award at this year’s Havana Film Festival, to be held in the Cuban capital from December 5 to 15. Over a hundred films from outside the region will also be shown.
Read MoreCuba’s En Clave de Rumba (“Rumba Rhythms”) project connects people who are seeking exposure for the genre, people with many years of experience, some of whom have never achieved recognition as rumba musicians and for whom this music is their lives. Musicologist Cary Diez, tells us about the initiative.
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