Director, Lucy Walker. Organic, spontaneous, sexy dances progress chronologically from Afro-Cuban Santería rumba through mambo, cha-cha-chá, salsa, breakdancing, and reggaeton. The broader history of Cuba is revealed in the moves. Palpable and transporting, this live-action VR documentary was filmed on location in Cuba and features Ballet de la Televisión Cubana. How to Watch VR: VR … Read more
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), a federal grantmaking agency and a member of a historic US government cultural mission to Cuba, has announced it will provide a grant to a distinguished group of US art conservators to visit Cuba to learn about preservation challenges and methods. The $30,000 grant will go to the … Read more
by Simons Chase What Makes Cuban Art Exceptional There is an ethical asymmetry in the art that has emerged out of Cuba in the last several generations. The yin of that asymmetry is yoked to generations of Cubans’ writhing under communism’s lash, and the yang is the immense creativity unleashed by that monolithic paradigm’s fantastical … Read more
Born November 10, 1983 and originally from Havana, painter and printmaker Aneet Fontes has spent the past three years in Miami. Despite her distance from Havana, Aneet’s artistic inspiration draws from the urban landscape of Old Havana. “The Persistence of Time” picks up where Aneet’s previous exhibition, “And yet, I still love you,” left off. A … Read more
Carmen Herrera finally made her first sale at 89. And now, at 101, both Carmen and her native country, Cuba, seem to be getting the attention of the world. The Cuban artist’s work can be seen at the Tate in London, MoMA in New York, and she has an exhibition coming to the Whitney Whitney … Read more
Wander through any Havana neighborhood on a typical weekend and it won’t take long before you hear a familiar sound: the wales of joy expressed by reunited Cubans returning home from the US to see their families. According to a report by Pew Research Center, the number of Cubans who have entered the US has … Read more
Cubans are incredibly creative people, and most Cubans enjoy making music in just about any setting. For Cubans, music has a physical dimension as the mastery of a craft but there is also a metaphysical dimension that is a cultural connection to an eclectic blend of histories and influences stretching back hundreds of years. Turn … Read more
Learning some Spanish before traveling to Cuba will greatly enhance your experience by exposing you to aspects of Cuban culture that you would otherwise miss if you could not communicate directly with Cuban people. Poetry contains essential elements of culture and lots of vocabulary that is likely missing in structured language learning tools. Plus, encoding … Read more
The Harlem/Havana Music & Cultural Festival will bring Cuban artists to New York in August for a week of performances and other events – followed by a similar cultural exchange in Havana in February. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and U.S. Representative Charles Rangel, a longtime Cuban Embargo opponent, have been working for years on … Read more
John Hemingway is an American writer and translator living in Montreal. His memoir, Strange Tribe (Lyons Press, May 2007), describes the love/hate relationship and the striking similarities between his father, Dr. Gregory Hemingway, and his grandfather, Ernest Hemingway. Ernest lived much of his adult life in Cuba and eventually became a fixture of Havana. He … Read more
