CUBAN TRANSITIONS

Thinking back on our two weeks in Cuba, what is still astounding to me is how often we were presented with, happened to stumble upon, and were generally surrounded by art and cultural expressions. Our program included countless cultural activities such as visits to Fuster’s studio in Jaimanitas and a modern dance studio in Havana, a meeting with representatives from the Agencia Cubana del Rap, a visit to the Korimakao community arts project in the Cienega de Zapata, a tour of the Benny Moré Art School in Cienfuegos, a visit to the Mejunje cultural center in Santa Clara and the Higher Institute for the Arts in Havana. But more striking perhaps was how art, especially music, was everywhere and seemed to play such an important role in the daily life of Cubans.

Some of it was obviously that  “pre-packaged” culture meant to paint Cuba as a land of “libidinous young salsa dancers and sensual Afro-Cuban rhythms,” as one travel website described it. We definitely saw that travelling through the island; there was live music and usually some sort of dance performance at practically every restaurant we went to and hotel we stayed at.  But for Cubans, music and art in general, serve a purpose that is much greater than simply creating a product for tourist consumption.

Yohaned, the female singer from Hermanazos went so far as to say that “music has been the breath we’ve needed to survive. Cubans have been able to cope with tough times through music, as a way to let go, have fun.” This seemed to true everywhere we went in Cuba, with people of all ages… from those groups of young people who gathered with guitars and bottles of rum to sing the night away at the Malecon to the elderly gentlemen (along with throngs of other tourists and locals alike) who congregated at the main square in Trinidad to dance to the sounds of Los Van Van and Sierra Maestra.

And yet music and other types of artistic production are more than just a national pastime. Arts education and artistic production have been a focal point of the post ’59 government and used to strengthen nationalistic and revolutionary ideals. La Escuela Nacional de Arte (ENA) was one of the earliest and most successful projects created by the Revolution geared towards the arts. It was founded in February of 1962 as a multidisciplinary center for the teaching of diverse, yet inter-connected art forms to students from all regions and socio-economic sectors of the Cuban population. As we saw on our visit to the Benny Moré Art School in Cienfuegos as well, the Cuban government devotes significant resources and places considerable emphasis on arts education. In fact, Cuba is one of the countries with the highest percentage of musicians per capita (one professional musician for every 900 inhabitants). However, it is not simply formal arts education that receives state funding, but also various community based arts projects such as the Korimakao project that seeks to bring art and culture to isolated communities in the Cienaga de Zapata and the Mejunje cultural center in Santa Clara that uses the arts to carry out social campaigns to battle different forms of social, economic, racial and sexual discrimination.

I spoke to a young man (I failed to get his name through Yoel’s urgent calls for us to return to the bus) at the Mejujnje who was an architect/musician/graphic designer about the government’s emphasis on culture and the importance of the arts for Cuban people. He said that “people in Cuba have many needs and culture is a way of meeting those needs. Even though we might not have enough to eat at times, we can feed our souls.” And recently, it seems as if the government has opened up space for Cuban artists to be more vocal about those needs and depict their realities in a way that might once have been deemed anti-revolutionary, and yet is now government-endorsed.  This is well exemplified in the creation of the Agencia Cubana del Rap, an organization subsidized by the Cuban government aimed at promoting hip hop and rap in Cuba. While most of Cuban rap is deeply politicized, touches on sensitive topics such as racism and is often critical of government, in 1999, Abel Prieto, the minister of Culture, declared rap to be ” an authentic expression of Cuban culture”.

While it is definitely not representative of Cuban art or culture, below is short video of the art we were “ presented with, happened to stumble upon, and were generally surrounded by” during our two weeks in Cuba.

Sources:

http://adventures.worldnomads.com/destinations/56/Cuba.aspx

http://www.encaribe.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1924:escuela-nacional-de-arte-ena&catid=80:baile&Itemid=99

http://www.ecured.cu/index.php/El_Mejunje