the most personal travel experience to cuba

.Nobody knows Cuba better than us

Cuban art is diverse and our tours will allow you to experiencethe island’s talent and maybe even meet some of the artists behind it

Discover the remarkable history of Havana. Colonial life andmodern time are all part of this unforgettable tour of Cuba’s capital, Havana

Learn about the powerful African influence in Cuba, Havana Highlights, and Cuban Cigar discovery

Foodies love our cooking classImagine driving down a street in a vintage Chevrolet,Ford, Buick, Cadillac, Mercury, Dodge, Oldsmobile or Pontiac

Miami Office

3250 NE 1st Ave Suite, 310Miami, Florida 33137Call: (305)602-0219

[email protected]

Oncuba Travel specializes in creating unique experiences through a plethora of products and services that allow international travelers to experience the real Cuba. Simply said, we understand and speak Cuba better than anyone else. We’ve extensively explored, connected, and have developed an extensive network of professionals in Cuba that allow us to create unforgettable curated experiences and lifelong memories for our travelers.

The most personal travel experience to Cuba

UNREPETEABLE SPACES AND A DIFFERENT MEALCalle 5ta., No. 511 altos entre Paseo y 2, Vedado, Ciudad De La Habana, Cuba

(+53) 7 [email protected]

PRESIDENTHUGO CANCIO

[email protected]

EDITORIAL DIRECTORTAHIMI [email protected]

EXECUTIVE DIRECTORARIEL MACHADO

[email protected]

DESIGN & LAYOUTELIZABETH PÉREZ DIZPATRICIO HERRERA VEGA

PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTOROTMARO RODRÍGUEZ

COPYEDITINGCHARO GUERRA

TRANSLATIONERIN GOODMAN

WEB EDITOR CUBAMÓNICA RIVERO [email protected]

> OnCuba and the OnCuba logo are registered® trademarks of Fuego Enterprises, Inc., its subsidiaries or divisions.

> OnCuba Travel is a trademark™ of Fuego Enterprises, Inc., its subsidiaries or divisions.

> Oncuba Travel a publication of Fuego Media Group, a division of Fuego Enterprises, Inc., a publicly traded company (FUGI).

> OnCuba © 2012 by Fuego Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Articles may be reproduced, in whole or in part, as long as the source is cited. Reproduction of photographs without the editor’s permission is prohibited. Any views or opinions expressed are those of the articles’ authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of OnCuba.

COVER: Photo: May Reguera

EDITOR´S LETTER

A graduate of the teacher-training college of Havana, my grandfa-ther, Nano, taught mathematics to thousands of people. I suspect that he was an unforgettable teacher. When I tell people my last name, sometimes I’m still asked if I’m related to Mr. Arboleya.

He was born in Batabanó, a humble fishing village south of Havana. He was the only one of his many siblings who managed to study and have a career. He established his family in El Pilar —a “hot neighborhood” in Havana— where he earned the re-spect of the people. On the street people called him “Maestro” (Teacher).

My grandfather’s gift was teaching, so he didn’t think twice, at age 50, about participating in the literacy campaign in a little vil-lage in the interior of Pinar del Río. His 12- and 13-year-old children did the same. He had a reputation as a “tough guy”, but if you didn’t learn mathematics with him, you could give up the battle.

Every year my grandfather, my sister, and I made the same tour of Havana. He took us along the Paseo del Prado, we sat on a bench, and he recited different poems by José Martí. Each year he told us a different story that placed a young Martí sit-ting on that bench and each year, my sister and I believed him. Little did it bother me when I learned later that, although Martí must have walked along the tree-lined dirt road that was, in his time, the Paseo del Prado, he never sat on that bench. The Paseo we toured, with its beautiful central promenade, its stone and marble benches, its lampposts and its laurels, was inaugurated on October 10, 1928, thirty-three years after the poet’s death.

JOSÉ MARTÍ, EL BENNY, AND MY GRANDFATHER

We left Prado and went down Empedrado Street toward Plaza de la Catedral. Abuelo made up stories along the way, mixing the sublime with the ridiculous, talking about José de la Luz y Cabal-lero, Cecilia Valdés, Conrado Marrero, or Mongo Tres Chapitas.

When we were approaching the Plaza, before our much-antic-ipated lunch at El Patio, my sister and I prepared for embarrass-ment—which we later remembered with mischievous complicity. Abuelo stood in the center of the imposing Plaza de la Catedral and dedicated a song by El Benny at the top of his lungs: I don’t know / I can’t tell you how it happened / I can’t explain what hap-pened / but I fell in love with you....

José Martí: poet, cultured patriot, a free and sensitive spirit, loyal, white son of Spaniards, the soul of Cubans’ thirst for inde-pendence. El Benny: self-taught musical genius, drinker, dancer, good friend, sharer of everything he had, black descendant of the king of a Congo tribe, his voice was deep.

Every year Abuelo would tell me “Come on, let’s go eat the best bread croquettes in Havana.” In fact, he was teaching me about the place where I come from.

LIMARA MENESES, BEFORE AND AFTER EL BENNYCecilia Crespo Limara is one of the most successful Cuban actresses of her generation. Mother, immigrant, Afro-Cuban, producer…. she effortlessly takes on new challenges across the straits.

HAYDÉE MILANÉS: MUSIC FROM WITHINMichel Hernández Haydée Milanés is an artist who unleashes her whole self in each song. This interview focuses on the poetic connection with her father, a founder of Cuban nueva trova music.

CALLEJÓN DE HAMEL: ENCHANTED ALLEYMichel Hernández Those who travel to Havana interested in Afro-Cuban culture should plan a visit to this site where African knowledge is transplanted on the island. It’s not merely a place for tourists—this space showcases the creative and transformative spirit of a vital element of Cuban culture.

24CINEMA 36

INTERVIEW

30MADE IN CUBA

CONT

ENTS

GAZES OF THE BLACK WOMANOdette Casamayor Cisneros

What does it mean to be black in Cuba? To be a descendant of slaves in the Americas? What strength is transmitted to us by our ancestors? Discover the experiences of runaway slaves throughout the centuries through very particular ways of examining and recreating reality in the works of black Cuban artists Sara Gómez, Belkis Ayón, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Gertrudis Rivalta and Susana Pilar Delahante Matienzo.

BENNY MORÉ: ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF GENIUSRosa MarquettiAnyone interested in Cuba must know Benny Moré’s music—El Benny is Cuba.

53 ONCUBA

TRAVEL MAGAZINE

14COVER

20MUSIC

OLAZÁBAL: DEFENDING THE HERITAGE OF MY ANCESTORSEstrella Díaz

Santiago Rodríguez Olazábal is an artist who cultivates a deeply figurative work, which is immediately evident when visiting his beautiful home-studio in the municipality of Playa. On canvases hanging from the walls, the human figure is central because, as he states, "Man appears in Ifá's entire body of literary work and even plants acquire a human dimension!".

70 BILLBOARD June / JulyAle R. ChangFor these hot months, we suggest some 100 % Cuban cultural events. They’ll make you forget the suffocating summer heat in Havana.

PORTRAITSDanay NápolesRETRATOS (Portraits) is the continuation of a performative series of photographs of Cuban artists who, from the image and from our mutual and enriching exchange, share part of their life and work.

THE DIVINOAlicia GarcíaIf you want to leave the city and feel the greenery of the Cuban countryside, go to Divino restaurant in the humble neighborhood of Mantilla, very close to where the most famous Cuban contemporary narrator, Leonardo Padura, was born and lives to this day.

62LIGHT & SHADOWS

56PHOTO FEATURE 66

GASTRONOMIC REVIEW

THE "GLADYS PALMERA" COLLECTION: A LATIN AND CUBAN MUSICAL TREASURE TROVEMilena Recio

In the hills of San Lorenzo del Escorial, in Madrid, a mansion of light treasures the wonderful ¨Gladys Palmera Collection of Latin and Cuban music, compiled by Alejandra Fierro Eleta over decades.

ALEJANDRA ESTEFANÍA IS INSPIRED: "I'LL TRAVEL TO CUBA TO MEET THE BOY WITH THE FLOWER"Marita Pérez Díaz

A Latin artist seeks inspiration for her work on the Cuban culture surrounding her in Miami. She invites us to an exclusive trip to Havana with OnCuba Travel in November. She’d love to uncover the story behind a photo in which a Cuban boy holds a flower.

WOMEN BOXERS. FEMINIST REVOLUTION.... ¡SÍ!Beyond investigating this story, the closest Christopher Baker –recipient of the 2008 Lowell Thomas Award for Travel Journalist of the Year– ever got to boxing was having his ears boxed as a kid.

42ART & CULTURE

52COMING SOON!

46CUBA WITH CHRISTOPHER B.

CHRISTOPHER BAKERTravel journalist, photographer, author, adventure motorcyclist, tour leader, romantic (and single). Cuba—exotic, eccentric, and enigmatic—feeds my insatiable curiosity and passion. I feel like I’m Cuban in my heart and soul.

Women Boxers. FEMINIST REVOLUTION.... ¡SÍ! P. 46

ALICIA GARCÍAMy admiration for my father – founder of the famous Rancho Luna and El Aljibe restaurants, philosopher of gastronomy and of all things about life – has enabled me to value the culinary and food culture not just to delight myself but also as a fundamental space to understand the human essence. I am a co-founder of the Gourmet Festival and author of several books on Cuban food.

Divino P. 66

DANAY NÁPOLESWithin photography, my passion is portraiture. I try to capture the essence of the human being beyond the images of the artists who tell me their story and reveal part of their lived experiences.

Portraits P. 56

BU

TORS

MARITA PÉREZ DÍAZMaster in Magazine, Newspaper and Online Journalism. If you ask me something, I may reply with another question. I am telling your story and looking for answers, but in the end, I

am just trying to understand my own.

Alejandra Estefanía Is Inspired: "I'll Travel to Cuba to Meet the Boy with the Flower"P. 52

ESTRELLA DÍAZMy great-grandfather was a lighthouse keeper in the Morro, my mother was born in a wooden house with a red roof built at the foot of the lighthouse. I’ve always found La Giraldilla enigmatic and beautiful…I feel very linked to Havana and I believe it is because of my relation with the sea: could it be because I am a daughter of Yemayá?

Olazábal: Defending the heritage of my ancestors P. 62

ALEJANDRO R. CHANGI was born in Guanabo, but I don’t like the sun. On the other hand, I could never be far from the sea. That’s why I continue clinging to the Malecón doing journalism,

which is what I more or less do best.

Billboard Jun-Jul | 2019P. 70

ROSA MARQUETTIContrary to what many think, I would have liked to live the Havana nights of the sixties. I try to do it as much as possible, traveling through music and its interesting characters. But someone always comes and wakes me up from my dream!

Benny Moré: One Hundred Years of GeniusP. 20

CECILIA CRESPOThere are times when I talk nonstop, although I also listen. My silent aspect is only seen when I cling to my keyboard. I have a passion for my family and for a long time for Cuban culture and a delicious book I am writing to distribute among my friends: Practical and Exotic Cooking Handbook.

Limara Meneses, Before and After El Benny P. 24

MICHEL HERNÁNDEZMick Jagger assured me that he was never going to retire from the stage, but the heart fails even in immortality hopefuls. Ozzy Osbourne told me that he wanted to move to Havana and that he loved The Beatles above all else. But I only believe in the verse by Leonard Cohen: "There is a crack in everything, that's how the light comes in."

Callejón de Hamel: Enchanted Alley P. 30Haydée Milanés: Music from Within P. 36

ODETTE CASAMAYORFrom anywhere in the world: writing, being, loving. Messily and, if possible, near the sea.

Gazes of the Black Woman P. 14

CONMILENA RECIOI am still perplexed about the course of my life and the signs I receive from the world. I understand less and less, and ask more and more questions.

The "Gladys Palmera" Collection: A Latin and Cuban Musical Treasure Trove P. 42

TRI

KWOMAN

Odette Casamayor Cisneros

We think that we’re the ones looking at her, but it’s she, the young black woman, who gazes at us from the cover. Before sitting down to write, I wanted to know her name, because I refuse to propagate the anonym-ity in which black women are generally kept in the Western world. She’s not a doll. She’s not a fetish. She’s beautiful, but she’s not just a beautiful black woman either—that’s not what defines her. I imagine her name is Isabel or Inés. Marta or Julia. In any case, a Spanish name, if she was born in Cuba. Her surnames also can orient the imagination toward towns, meadows, and vineyards in Spain. But there’s much more than His-panic heritage in this young woman. Her gaze, inviting us to open this magazine, shouts out that other, essential part of her existence, even if there’s no trace of it in her still-unknown name. It’s a gaze that allows us to look upon her with pleasure, but in the same gesture she returns the blow and fixes her gaze on us, as if questioning us. She wants us to know. She wants us to give her a name. Let’s do it.

BGAZES OF THE

14

LAC

COVER

OnCuba Travel, Jun.-Jul. 201918

is more than white, more than mulatto, more than black.” In reality, black Cubans, already citizens at the time, continued to be relegated to the same social inexis-tence and economic indigence suffered under slavery; and they had to fight for their civil rights from the early days of the Republic. Their demands would be silenced with blood; in 1912 President José Miguel Gómez ordered the killing of members of the Partido Independiente de Color and its supporters. It’s estimated that between 2,000 and 6,000 blacks and mestizos were killed in just two months.

Toward mid-century, some theories that examined and confirmed the mestizo constitution of Cubans were consolidat-ed: poet Nicolás Guillén introduced the notion of “Cuban color” when he present-ed his book Sóngoro cosongo in 1931 as “mulatto verses”; and in 1940 lawyer and ethnologist Fernando Ortiz developed the concept of transculturation, creating from the melting pot the myth par excellence of national miscegenation. During those years, black Cubans’ efforts to attain certain political influence was also tena-cious. Important union leaders appeared, such as Lázaro Peña, and intellectuals such as Rafael Serra and Gustavo Urrutia. The work of societies for black people —such as the Aponte and Atenas clubs in Santiago de Cuba and Havana— was also notable. They encouraged the formation of common civic and political fronts, from which to advocate for their rights.

The 1959 Revolution brought the im-plementation of policies that offered all Cubans, regardless of their race, equal access to health, education and culture, housing, and employment. Institutions were founded in the 1960s in which the various sectors of the population should be grouped — let’s consider the Federa-tion of Cuban Women, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, and clubs for workers and professionals. As a re-sult, the structures that had previously organized institutional life were declared obsolete. Clubs for blacks were closed, because the equality of all Cubans had been officially proclaimed: only one iden-tity, the revolutionary one, would prevail.

Nonetheless, racial inequality did not disappear altogether.

At that time, schools proliferated where young people would be molded like “mal-leable clay,” aspiring to their emergence as “new men” as defined by Ernesto “Che” Guevara in 1965. Many of these centers

were concentrated on a small island south of Havana called Isla de Pinos (renamed Isla de la Juventud in 1978). The first Cu-ban black filmmaker, Sara Gómez, arrived there, camera-in-hand, to shoot a docu-mentary trilogy depicting the experiences of these young people. In one of them, Una isla para Miguel (1968), a scene in which Rafael, a young black man, denounces the persistence of racial prejudices within the revolutionary society, has remained anthological in Cuban cinema. Facing the camera, Rafael’s gaze, like that of the young model on the cover, interrogates us, demanding action, a real change.

Sara Gómez is one of the maroons who never stopped fighting for social justice and who, even after her death, compels us to continue the battle. As does another great black Cuban artist, Belkis Ayón, whose work often recreated the founding myths of the Abakuá, a secret mutual aid society. The founding myth of the Abakuá comes from the Calabar region in West

Africa, encoded with the discovery of the original secret —the voice of Tanze, the sacred fish— by Princess Sikan, then sacrificed and turned into a religious foundation. Since then, this society has remained closed to women, which natu-rally prevented Belkis Ayón from being privy to the perspective of a practitioner. Her pieces don’t reveal to us the Abakuá liturgical secret but the representation of the condition of the secret. She uses minimalist silhouettes barely revealing generic belonging, in which what’s essen-tial is often a gaze. Furthermore, the fig-ures lack mouths: they can’t speak. Only a thick mystery inhabits them, advancing from the hollow of the gaze towards the spectator, provoking restlessness.

Sometimes, a gaze is not even neces-sary. Artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons keeps her eyes closed in the po-laroid series that comprise one of the pieces from When I Am Not Here, estoy allá. This message is written on her torso:

Belkis Ayón (La Habana, 1967-1999), “Sikán” (1991)

There’s a gaze like that on my phone screen. It’s of my great-great-grandmoth-er, Cecilia Wilson, and it was taken at the end of the nineteenth century or the be-ginning of the twentieth century. Uncer-tainty dominates the history of people of African descent in the Americas: Precisely where in Africa were our ancestors kid-napped? What were their names, then? How did they live before being thrown into the slave ship in which they would cross the Atlantic to start their new lives as non-men, and non-women? Despite the unknown, I embrace the certainty that this photograph was taken so that my great-great-grandmother could look at me every time I turn on my phone. And so

once again she recounts her story that I half-know: that the last enslaved person in my family was a very tall man dressed in white, who came from a Lucumí African tribe and lived somewhere on the east-ern part of the island. One day he took to the woods bordering the river and never appeared again. There are no names, no places, no dates. However, generation after generation in the family we have be-lieved this origin story because there’s no other option — blacks in Cuba, in one way or another, we all come from outright vio-lence, to being nothing more than objects for labor, pieces of ebony marked with a red-hot iron on a rib, a shoulder, an arm. And they were given Spanish names. We

have no exact memory of the stories of the fugitive Lucumí that were told in my family, nor of any of our African ancestors. We do, however, have memories of the flesh; and from there out to the world, in our gaze.

That former slave who escaped follow-ing the clamor of the river, travels to my era through my great-great-grandmother’s gaze on my phone screen. From the past, her eyes propel me to the future. Each day they bring the strength that a black woman must rely on. This is our history.

Slavery was officially abolished in 1886, and in 1902 the Republic of Cuba was born, following to a great extent the legacy of José Martí, for whom “Man

Sara Gómez (Havana, 1942-1974). Filmmaker, screenwriter, and journalist. The first Cuban woman to direct a feature-length film, “De cierta manera” (One Way or another). Photo: Archive


“Identity Could Be a Tragedy”; but the image progressively disappears under a white spot, until it disappears almost completely in the last photo. Spectators asks themselves, what could be that “here” and “allá” (there)? — her native Cuba, the United States where the artist has lived, or Africa, which is also part of her history? The tragedy derives from the impossibility of identity, which never fully expresses everything we are.

It’s impossible to grasp the experiences of black Cuban women within a simple im-age, to catalog them all under an identity label. That is why we fall into a whirlwind from whose background we are absorbed by the grim look of the “Quinceañera con Kremlin,” where artist Gertrudis Rivalta alludes to a more recent reality: Cuba af-ter the collapse of the socialist system in Eastern Europe, in the 1990s. The disap-pearance of economic support from the socialist bloc countries led to an acute crisis on the island, known as the “Special Period.” Since then, economic difficulties

and the transformations of Cuban society have increased racial inequality, making visible a phenomenon previously circum-scribed to private or family spheres. To-day, the rare presence of black Cubans in spaces where the most privileged groups usually gather, attests to the undeniable existence of these inequalities.

If in the urgent daily survival there are few pathways open to the majority of blacks, we also have an invaluable capital in our maroon tradition. The maroons emanci-pate themselves, they don’t wait for anyone to come set them free. In the woods, they find a way to survive and defend their free-dom, using whatever tools and knowledge they find along the way. They invent their own modes of subsistence.

This maroonage is often transmitted by black women, from mothers to daugh-ters, using means never mentioned in history textbooks or in famous speeches. Time and again we have sustained the home given the traditional occupations allowed to black women. María Magdale-

na Campos-Pons alludes to those women in “Spoken Softly with Mama,” when she reproduces old carbon plates on glass, while the artist’s ancestors seem to ob-serve us from the bottom of the installa-tion —always that same gaze— through photos projected on ironing boards.

The maroons continue to use whatever they find within their reach — not just to sur-vive, but to strive. Artist Susana Pilar Delah-ante Matienzo created the character of Flor Elena as an avatar in the game Second Life, where she is a financial dominator (Findom). Her image was presented at the 2015 Venice Biennale in the piece “Dominio inmaterial.” The artist was able to travel there thanks to the virtual slaves of Flor Elena, who provid-ed the funds to buy a plane ticket. The black Flor Elena, a virtual character, then had an impact on the real life of its creator, also black. Without a doubt, maroon methods. But the action is right-on; and its power, inescapable. Just like the nameless young black woman’s gaze on the cover, from which we can’t escape.

Susana Pilar Delahante Matienzo (La Habana, 1984), “Dominadora inmaterial” / “Inmaterial Dommes”, Second Life (Net Art), 2012-2013

Gertrudis Rivalta (La Habana, 1971). “Quinceañera con Kremlin” (2004)

Benny Moré is like a god in Cuba. He is spoken of in the present tense, as if he were a close friend or neighbor, as if he had never left, as if his voice

still shakes the Ali Bar, the nightclub that he turned into a personal haven and where his followers used to wait for him night after night, no matter at what

time he would burst through the door to unleash the frenzy. No one could resist his incomparable voice, his charisma, his unique way of making them dance. Cubans the world over talk about him, calling him simply “El Benny,” or “El Bár-baro,” or “El Bárbaro del Ritmo.”

There isn’t a Cuban who, in a nostalgic moment, doesn’t put on one of his great boleros. To hear him sing Cómo fue, Alma

mía or Mi amor fugaz is enough for any contained feelings to surface. He has been the soundtrack to so many celebra-tions. To the rhythm of Qué bueno baila usted, Santa Isabel de las Lajas, or Ma-racaibo oriental, the madness of rhythm is unleashed and, at that moment, the certainty that El Benny is timeless is con-firmed: his sones, guarachas and boleros resist the passage of time.

MUSIC20

So this voice outlives the man and that man is now albums, portraits, tears,

a hat with huge flying wings

—and a cane!(Fragment from the poem “Oyendo un disco de Benny Moré,”

by Roberto Fernández Retamar)

Rosa MarquettiPhotos: Archive

BENNY MORÉ:

ONE HUNDRED YEARS

OF GENIUS

OnCuba Travel, Jun.-Jul. 2019 Jun.-Jul. 2019 oncubamagazine.com24 25

before his death and in terrible physical condition, he didn’t cancel a contract at a dance in the town of Palmira, more than 200 kilometers from the capital. He gave his all on stage until he finished singing and then coughed up blood, foretelling his imminent end.

Those who lived through it remember that unparalleled and spontaneous mani-festation of popular mourning. People accompanied him with deep pain along the funeral route from the capital to his beloved native Santa Isabel de las Lajas, in Cienfuegos.

He had enough time, however, to leave a legacy that places him without a doubt among the greatest Cuban and Latin American musicians.

Bartolomé Maximiliano Moré, “Bartolo,” “Benny” Moré, “El Bárbaro del Ritmo”

was born in Santa Isabel de las Lajas, province of Las Villas, on August 24,

1919, and died in Havana, on February 19, 1963

Bartolomé Maximiliano Moré had no precedent, nor has he had a successor, giv-en his unparalleled genius and talent. With his passing, a cycle in Cuban music was closed that wouldn’t be reopened, because Benny is unique—a natural and rare genius.

Benny Moré’s definitive absence estab-lished the perception of his genius, and also the truth and myths surrounding him, never so resounding and accurate, and increas-ingly fueled by a love that only a dancing- and bolero-singing country is capable of.

If he read this, Benny would probably respond with an incredulous and carefree smile, because, for him, singing and en-tertaining were the most natural things in the world, whether in Havana, Los Ange-les, or New York.

HIS RECORDINGS, MOSTLY WITH RCA VICTOR, ENCAPSULATE

HIS VOICE AND HIS PERSONAL WAY OF BEING CUBAN

Benny Moré is a popular genius whose innate talent prevailed—he was always compelled to sing, and from the beginning he sang on street corners as a traveling musician, earning pennies to help alleviate the poverty he lived in. He must have been very sure of his own genuine talent and courage, when he arrived in Havana to try his luck with only a few pesos and his guitar on his shoulder. His voice resonated in dodgy bars, cabarets of dubious reputation, cheap restaurants, and canteens, until Miguel Mat-amoros discovered him singing in a restaurant on Avenida del Puerto and Benny quickly agreed to join the band that the great sonero was forming to tour in Mexico.

That was a turning point in his life and the beginning of a his-torical musical career—his time in Mexico, his first recordings for the RCA Victor, his work on albums with Pérez Prado and his incur-sion in films of the so-called rumberas cinema, during the golden age of Mexican cinema, which placed him at the beginning of the international emergence of the mambo. Benny was the voice of the big band where Bebo Valdés premiered his batanga rhythm, a decisive reference to which Benny himself would turn to later when he formed the incomparable Banda Gigante.

Benny is equally excellent singing a son montuno, a guara-cha, a bolero, or improvising some country décimas. But what is even more amazing is his ability to direct his great orchestra of seasoned musicians; he makes brilliant arrangements and orchestrations based on sound, without having studied music, nor being able to read music. Benny asked his musical director and friend, the great trombonist Generoso Jiménez, what he wanted from each instrument in a given piece. The result is those extraordinary and modern arrangements, which Jiménez articu-lated and transferred to the score. During the 1950s,

Subsequently he brought his music to Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, and Panama, as well as Puerto Rico, Los Angeles, and New York. He performed in 1960 at the Hollywood Palladium in a unique show, accompanied by Tito Puente and his orchestra. Puente, like Machito and his Afrocubans, would accompany him again and again at the famous Palladium in New York. With these performances, Benny began a sort of conquest; initially few peo-ple there knew him—his fame on those stages had been limited to the Latin community and to assiduous Americans, where the mambo and the cha-cha were all the rage.

But he would not return to those venues. He would die at forty-three, in the midst of a triumphant career that only a terrible cir-rhosis of the liver could put an end to. Alcohol and a fast lifestyle, that he both enjoyed and despised, accelerated his end. Legend has been fierce in emphasizing his informality and his inability to stick to a chronometric discipline, characteristic features of the great Cuban musician. However, a definitive critical judg-ment would also be contradictory here; just forty-eight hours

BENNY MORÉ WAS AN UNPRECEDENTED MUSICAL

PHENOMENON, CUBA’S GREATEST MUSICAL GENIUS

BENNY MORÉ WOULD INCITE AN AUTHENTIC MADNESS

FOR CUBAN POPULAR MUSIC. NO ONE WHO LISTENED TO HIM

SING WAS LEFT WITH ANY DOUBT:

The play "Bicycle Country," by Nilo Cruz (2017). Photo: Chris Bartelski

24 CINEMA

LIMARA MENESES Before and After El Benny

Cecilia Crespo


Marlon Brandon once said that he resented those people who, when they met an actor, thought they were facing a stupid celebrity who wasn’t interested in normal things like the rest of us. What do you think of the link between an actor and everyone else?I think that people are free to think what they want about others until they’ve had the chance to meet them. I believe that the bond between human beings and with everything surrounding them should be cordial and re-spectful. It doesn’t matter if they’re actors, doctors, architects, or astronauts.

How did Cuatro mujeres —the successful play you wrote and acted in— come about?Cuatro mujeres was a project that arose

from a collective need to make theater, from me and three other actresses here. It was really written, produced, and direct-ed among the four of us, along with Ona Gutiérrez. We were able to take the play to Mexico and then put it on again twice here in Atlanta, which is a complex market for our theatrical concept. But all eight shows here were very successful, which led me to a bigger project for next year.

How are you able to not be typecast, which has happened to many actresses?Do you know why I haven’t played many more characters? Precisely because of the damn stereotype. In life you have to know how to say NO, even if that means working

Limara playing Aida, in El Benny (2006). Photo: Pedro Abascal

Limara Meneses is one of the most important ac-tresses of her generation. For a while she was a very recurrent face in Cuban media. She has been liv-ing outside of Cuba for a

few years and has been not inactive per se, but a bit distanced from acting, for a good reason: motherhood. She has two daugh-ters and is expecting a third, to be named Isabella. She expresses her great acting potential and qualities on the set, although she has also worked behind the scenes.

A graduate of the Higher Institute of Art (ISA), she has worked with great film-makers such as Fernando Trueba in Chico y Rita, about the life of Bebo Valdés. She has “a pact” with music, because almost all of the characters she plays are linked to the stage and to our musical heritage. I met Limara before her film debut, when we were studying at the same high school. Then we met again at the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry, when I was writing about the film she starred in, El Benny. Today, thanks to technology we meet again to talk about her career: she in Atlanta and me in Havana.

“Jorge Luis Sánchez gave me the op-portunity to give a 400-degree turn to my life. El Benny is well-remembered in and outside of Cuba and my character, Aida, was also beloved. I still receive beauti-ful messages. I remember the experience with joy and a lot of nostalgia, almost 15 years ago when I was 17. Imagine.”

After so much time, how do you see Aida, that character that catapulted you?Oh, wow, time passes so quickly. I always say that the role marked a before and after in my life. It was the discovery of a profes-sion that I had never considered before. Aida represented the trust of a lot of peo-ple, starting with the director Jorge Luis Sánchez, producer Ihojamil Navarro, and the technical production team. In the case of Jorge Luis, he was putting his debut in the hands of someone who came from the countryside, with no knowledge of acting or cinema. I became Aida (Benny’s wife). Honestly, I’m not yet fully aware of every-thing that I owe to Aida, I’m convinced that much or almost everything that came later in my life is thanks to her.

It has been said that you have a pact with music. Many of your successful roles have been linked to this exciting universe. Tell us about this harmonious relationship.

My most transcendental characters in film have had to do with the world of the stage: feature films or shorts related to music. There’s an element of mystery in my life tying cinema to music, and also to Mario Guerra, a great friend and actor with whom I always find myself in films, specifically in this genre. Our harmony is apparent. El Benny threw me into the world of film; Oda a la Piña was a success-ful short film that was at many important festivals, one of them was the Küstendorf Film and Music Festival organized by Emir Kusturica. The same thing happened with Chico y Rita, for which we received a Goya and an Oscar nomination. We could be talking for a long time about this mysteri-ous and beautiful relationship I have with the world of music in film. I should consid-er taking singing lessons, don’t you think?

What have been the biggest challenges you faced in your career?Exposing my nude body, and the moment when I decided to create my family.

How do you take on the role of mother, immigrant, and professional?Being a mother is really complex for me, es-pecially since I became one too early. I have yet to find the idyllic part of being a mother [laughing], though I respect those who see it as something magical. I feel it’s a complex struggle and a clash of tremendous emo-tions. Maybe I see it this way because of be-ing an immigrant: I’m alone, without family nearby. Although I have a lot of support from my in-laws when they come to visit, from my father indulging his grandchildren’s whims, and from my mom. We’re all scattered around the world, you can imagine.... To continue, or at least, try to continue with my profession, a lot of it is a labor of love, because here I have to pay childcare in order to participate in the theatrical process.

Let’s talk about techniques, tactics, and strategies. How do you get into your characters? And how do you manage to detach yourself after interpreting them?If you see my scripts someday, you’d go crazy, sometimes I don’t even understand myself. I start working on the character from the moment I go to casting, I write everything that comes to my mind as I be-gin to observe, listen, and think like the character. I read the scripts over and over. Everything I studied at the ISA has helped me a lot —Uta Hagen, Lee Strasberg, Stanislavski, Eugenio Barba—, although it seems that they’re all from the theater, when I take from each one what helps me, I create my own technique and, most impor-

tantly, I work with my emotions. When you work with emotions, obviously there will be specific moments when something will affect you, or vice versa.... It’s not all about suffering! But up to now I don’t usually stay attached to anything beyond what’s normal. I have my own life and that’s the one I have to live.

What must a good actor be made of? What can’t be lacking?Courage, humility, and honesty. I say those three because one is not enough to be an ac-tor. Whether it’s good or bad, I’m not the one to decide. But for anyone who’s an actor or decides to be an actor, I think it’s very beauti-ful that they have one of these qualities.


With her daughters in Atlanta. Photo: Lianet Fleites

as a cashier in a supermarket or earning a living by studying something else that is financially viable, when you can’t practice your profession.

How have you experienced being an Afro-Cuban actress in the United States?I’m Afro-Cuban and of other mixed descent as well. In the United States, there’s a strong history of Afro-descendants. I live in the South, in Atlanta. So far, I haven’t felt that being Afro-Cuban or Afro-Latin, black, mulatto, or whatever they want to call me,

Being a “producer” is a big word. I like to negotiate, I like money, I love processes in full development. But what I like the most is feeling like I’m doing things that motivate me. That’s how I started looking for clients so that, like in the case of Cuatro mujeres, I could appear in theatrical spaces. Then I had an idea and I made several proposals to develop an artistic movement with a club here. And from there I had the possibility, with my husband, to direct and produce something that was more in the developmental phase. With that financial support, I started directing and producing, and we created a company so that every time I was going stir crazy, I wouldn’t have to wait to be called for work. To know that I have something of my own that I can do whenever I want.... We’ve already completed the first project, the play ¿Quién le teme al mundo de Santa? (Who’s Afraid of Santa’s World?).

Will you act again in Cuba?Without a doubt. It’s one of my greatest wishes. But it seems more and more dis-tant all the time. It would have to be some-one who wants to have me in their project, or I could spend a while there and try to be-come integrated once again, which seems difficult. There’s also a new generation working hard, with very good actors and actresses. I see it as a remote possibility, but not impossible. The answer is an em-phatic YES. It’s a repressed desire of mine.

What Cuban directors would you like to work with?I would like to work with Jorge Luis Sán-chez, Hugo Reyes, and with Daranas, I haven’t forgotten the way he treated me in one of his castings. I never had the oppor-tunity to work with Fernando Pérez, and I’m also very curious about working with Pavel Giroud, Carlos Celdrán, and Raúl Martín. But I’d be happy to work with who-ever wants to have me in their project, and if it’s in Cuba, all the better.

Let’s talk about the future. After you have the baby, what’s next?After Isabella is born: recover. Find a space and contact my agency to go back to cast-ings. And I have a seminar at an important university here, Kennesaw University. They have a program where they always show Chico y Rita, and they met me at Cuatro mujeres. Well, as a result of that seminar, we’re going to start a nice project with theatrical exchange, cinema, etc. And I’ll continue with my two workshop series at Emory University, another university here, which has a theater department and I’ll collaborate with a class.

has affected me for better or worse. Not even for selecting which castings to go to. My agency sends me to all the castings that fit my profile; sometimes they ask for blacks, sometimes they only need to speak good Spanish. I’ve really integrated very well to this city; I feel like just another resi-dent. It’s my experience, I think, that when a director likes you, labels don’t matter.

You’re also a producer. Tell me about that other aspect, that way of living art beyond the cameras?

El Benny (2006.) Photo: Pedro Abascal

Michel HernándezPhotos: Otmaro Rodríguez

Enchanted Alley

MADE IN CUBA30


“Several years ago, I took rumba les-sons in Denmark with a friend who has a Cuban music and dance school. It was a great learning experience that showed me Cuba’s musical wealth. I think that was one of the reasons why I traveled to Havana for the first time,” this 41-year-old Dane told OnCuba Travel in perfect Spanish.

The tourists are scattered throughout the area. The group mostly stands in front of a kind of open-air gallery where Cuban paintings are exhibited. Then they shoot a barrage of questions about religion to a local man in his 70s, who explains the necklaces he is wearing, representative of several Yoruba deities. He answers each question with an ancestral wisdom. He talks about the arrival of Africans to Cuba, the meaning of the clothes he wears, and sends them off with some life advice.

Those in the know say that to re-ally experience Havana, a visit to the Callejón de Hamel is a must, at least once. Founded in 1990 in Cayo Hueso in Havana, the neigh-borhood has become a hub for

Afro-Cuban culture and a reflection of its influences on the island.

Callejón de Hamel was an initiative of the sculptor Salvador González Escalona, who had taken some short drawing cours-es at the Escuela de Dibujo in Camagüey, and had done anthropology and ethnology research at the Casa de Africa, in Havana.

Salvador remembers that he was always encouraged by the idea of doing work that contributes to social transformation and re-spects our heritage. “At first, it wasn’t easy because of the scrutiny, but I never gave up trying to demonstrate the value of Cuban culture,” he tells OnCuba Travel.

This living museum is visited daily by Cubans and tourists from all over the world. They walk around to the sounds of drumbeats, and they are transfixed by the brightly painted, colorful walls with African religious motifs. Others delve into the Afri-can dances performed by groups of danc-ers who seem transplanted from Africa.

The Callejón de Hamel is a hive at dawn on Saturdays. A bus has just arrived at the corner, where the sound of a drum is heard. A tour guide exits the bus, fol-lowed by a diverse delegation of tourists. The guide introduces them to the place and they quickly disperse toward the adventure. One tourist, George Hula, ap-proaches musicians who quickly step up their percussion. In a few minutes, Hula is the one beating the drums at full force, to the surprise of many.

Salvador González Escalona

Callejón de Hamel, a place to experience Afro-Cuban culture


Callejón de Hamel receives visitors every day

Salvador González Escalona, the sculp-tor, chats with the visitors, explaining a bit about the origin of this “alley” and then he leaves to follow up on a project that is tak-ing up his time in recent months. He walks near phrases sculpted in stone and the heat that the dancers give off, accompanied by the incessant drumming. A photographer takes some pictures and the artist thanks him with a bow of his hands.

This space is recognized nationally and internationally. In Cuba, Salvador has won several awards, but he says that the great-est recognition is that of the people, of his people. The Callejón has also provided work for several of the residents from this busy intersection near the central avenues of San Lazaro and Infanta.

Katherine is another tourist who arrived in the morning. She’s from Canada and talks animatedly with Hula, who already blends into the community. He shows her some of the casino steps he learned in Denmark, and tells legends of Afro-Cuban rituals.

Everyone bears the scorching midday heat as best they can, drying sweat from their foreheads and continuing to explore. In one corner, an artist has carved the rep-resentation of a religious deity in wood. Be-side him, a man dances rumba while remind-ing me that bands such as Los Muñequitos de Matanzas and Clave y Guaguancó have played in the Callejón. “The good rumba,” he says, while waving colorful scarves.

The project has brought art closer to much of the neighborhood. There are paintings and music workshops for children and other events. One of the students, almost 15 years old, says that ever since he saw the Cuban film Esteban —which tells the story of a child from a humble neighborhood with a great apti-tude for the piano— he wants to be like Chucho Valdés. Another, however, says that he only dreams of being behind the drum on steamy days in this community project. Both live with the certainty that in this enchanted alley, anything is possible.

HAYD

ÉE

M

ILANÉ

S: We begin our conversation and right away she talks about her father, Pablo Milanés, founder of the Cuban nueva trova (also known as the New Song Movement) and an indispensable singer-songwriter for sev-eral generations of Cubans. “I especially re-member one afternoon. I sang very softly,” she says, “and I was very shy. I was afraid to sing. We were at a party at my dad’s house with a lot of important musicians. There was a piano player and my dad asked me to sing a song. Then he came up to me in front of everyone to tell me to project my voice, as if he thought nobody was watching us. It was hard, but it taught me a lesson.”

MUSIC36

Mus

ic fr

om W

ithin

Michel HernándezPhotos: Izuky Pérez

INTERVIEW

Haydée Milanés is one of the most versa-tile musicians of her generation. She is sit-ting in her living room at home in the Ha-vana municipality of Nuevo Vedado. She’s dressed completely in black wearing a T-shirt with the Russian cartoon characters Bolek and Lolek, so beloved by those born in the ’80s. Next to her is her husband and manager, photographer Alejandro Gutiér-rez. They’ve just finished filming some video clips requested by the iTunes plat-form as promotional material for her new album, Amor Deluxe.


“The international music labels ask you to remove a song, or incorporate another. The freedom that Casete gives me.... is one of the reasons why I work with them. I’m not interested in being told what to do, but I can accept suggestions. However, I feel that the big labels are becoming more open about this kind of thing. Sony is signing very interesting art-ists who don’t have a massive following. They’re opening up a bit when it comes to artists making their music.”

The founder of the electronic music project Instituto Mexicano del Sonido, Camilo Lara, has played a key role in Haydée’s creative trajectory. He was a director at EMI when she released her first record with that label. When Lara turned his sights to independent pro-duction in 2014, he called her to pro-pose that they work together. That’s how their collaboration began.

Haydée with her father, Pablo Milanés, in a photo taken by her mother, Zoe Álvarez

It’s nearly 3pm and the singer’s daugh-ter —little Haydée, age 6—comes closer to listen to the conversation with an overflow-ing curiosity. She plays with her little one’s curls, and Alejandro calls little Haydée to the table and gives her some crayons to color with. The girl sits down, plays a bit with the crayons and then flutters around the house. Haydée laughs and says that her daughter reminds her of herself as a child. “I was al-ways playing hide and seek, climbing trees, or running around. I was very mischievous. It seems she got that from me,” she jokes.

Haydée says that being a mother has changed her life and opened new horizons in her perceptions of reality. “Motherhood is the most beautiful thing that has hap-pened to me. It is the greatest love in the world, the greatest happiness. It has also been my greatest lesson. Through our children we learn a lot about ourselves, our limitations, our prejudices and fears.

We teach them, but our children are con-stantly teaching us. They teach us to play again, to be purer. They also make us more responsible. It’s a very interesting process. I enjoy it very much.”

At 38, the singer says that her main fear is to not feel afraid. “Nerves always do their thing. It’s the commitment with the need to do a good job. People who’ve been on the stage for a long time tell me that the fear never goes away. I prefer to feel those butterflies in my stomach be-cause it helps you do your best. If I didn’t feel them, I’d be worried.”She has produced six albums: Haydée, Hay-dée Milanés en vivo, A la felicidad, Palabras, Palabras en vivo and Amor, and has broad national and international recognition. It hasn’t been easy to stay on that path with-out making concessions, she says, and she has even gone through tough economic situ-ations to defend the work she believes in.

Photo: Leandro Feal

Haydée is in full promotional mode for Amor Deluxe. It’s the second album she has recorded of her father’s songs. It’s a double album that includes the album Amor, which she premiered with him to a full house at a concert at the Karl Marx Theater in Havana. On the album with 16 tracks, there are collaborations with a plethora of top European and Latin Ameri-can musicians: Joaquín Sabina, Chico Buarque, Lila Downs, Fito Páez, Silvia Pérez Cruz, Pancho Céspedes, Julieta Ven-egas, Ibeyi. Several of them watched her grow up from a little girl to the excellent performer and composer she is today.Together with these internationally rec-ognizable artists, the album includes a selection of songs from different time pe-riods and across a diverse musical range, with elements of son, rumba, rock, and trova. “It’s a great opportunity to introduce younger generations to my father’s songs and to reach young people,” she says. The album premiered on May 30th at a concert at the Lunario de México and will be pro-duced in Cuba by the Bis Music label.

She recalls one track in particular, for its emotional and symbolic significance: “I had sent two songs to Chico [Buarque] to choose from. Then he told me to give him another option. ‘The ones you sent me make me very sad,’ he confessed. So I asked my father what he thought would work best for Chico and without hesitat-ing he said, ‘Todos los ojos te miran.’”

The response could not have been better: the Brazilian felt that the song resonated within him. “He was crazy about the song and he said, ‘That song is mine.’ It was magical,” Haydée remem-bers, while revealing that Chico would like to sing in Cuba and that she’d like to help organize that potential concert.

Cuban and Brazilian music occupy a place of honor in the soundtrack of her life. “I sing music that moves me. Harmo-niously and melodically rich music with rhythm, like Cuban music, for example —Miguelito Cuní, Cotán, El Albino— or the cadence of Brazilian music that I heard as a child, by Elis Regina, Gilberto Gil, and Chico Buarque himself.”

For some years, the singer has been part of the catalog of the independent Mexican label Casete Digital. She explains that she chose this platform because she’s not interested in complying with the impositions of some major labels.


together. She believes it could be a turning point in the Cuban music scene, that it could influence the musical consumption of some young people. “If that happened, it would be like going back to that time. We would live an incredible moment, as a recognition of all that music that we grew up with.” A few weeks ago she gave a concert at the National Museum of Fine Arts and played songs by her father, Silvio, Carlos Varela, and Santiago Feliú, among others.

“They were protagonists during intense moments in Cuban music. They made an incredible duo that produced magic. [At that concert] I sang ‘Óleo de una mujer con sombrero’ (by Silvio Rodríguez), and I

imagined my dad backing me up on vocals. He used to do it wonderfully. They were a duo like Simon and Garfunkel,” she says.

The singer talks with her fans at every concert, and agrees to take pictures with them. She even affectionately receives those who manage to cross security in order to greet her.

The singer of “Libélula” says that she needs public affection in order to breathe, and she likes to know what people are thinking. “I don’t like to go on stage as a star. Being a public figure doesn’t mean that you must see people from afar. People deserve the love and closeness that I also need.”

“This is the path I’ve chosen. I don’t make music that doesn’t convince me or that has a different projection than mine. Artists must be consistent with themselves, not with the labels, and even before pleas-ing the public I have to feel good about myself. This is a more certain path, even if it doesn’t lead to selling millions of albums, it does allow you to have a loyal following, which is very important,” she says.

She gives the duos in Amor Deluxe as an example. “I feel that I’ve earned respect with my work and perseverance. I don’t think any of these great musicians have come to sing with me because I’m Pablo’s daughter, but because they know the fruit of my work,” says the singer, who was recently selected by The New Yorker magazine as one of the five best jazz performers in Cuba.

Being the leader of her own band has led her to rise above the prejudices of the deeply rooted macho tradition on the island. “Being a woman is always a challenge, in any field. Women have gradually come to occupy their rightful place. In my case, I lead a group of men, and that can sometimes be a bit tricky for some men who still find it difficult for a woman to lead or guide them. But these are things that one learns to deal with, they don’t go away from one day to the next. There are many issues that we’re not aware of, even as women. We must be very clear that we have to love and respect ourselves, and also among ourselves. You also have to train and study, because as a woman, you have to prove many things. And even more so if you’re the daughter of a celebrity,” she jokes.

She becomes emotional when she watch-es a Cuban series or movie with her father’s music. She gets a strange feeling that runs through her body and that goes from pain to nostalgia and nostalgia to pain.

“Those were beautiful years. Ugly things happened, too, and big mistakes were made. I was born in the year 1980 and I have beautiful memories of what things were like. I get nostalgic and sad that this country hasn’t been able to find a better direction. There was the chance to do it, there was the material to build it, and we lost opportunities. But now what we need is for Cubans to finally prosper.”

Silvio Rodríguez and Pablo Milanés were a quintessential Cuban musical duo, but they haven’t performed together in over 30 years. Personal issues distanced them. Haydée, nevertheless, is optimistic that they’ll once again put on concerts


42 ART & CULTURE

Milena RecioPhotos: Courtesy of Alejandra Fierro

At age 60, Alejandra Fierro Eleta continues to transform into Gladys Palmera, day after day. With an intense and challenging sort of musical metamorphosis, over time both Alejandra and Gladys are becoming music.

THE ˝GLADYS PALMERA˝ COLLECTION: A LATIN AND CUBAN MUSICAL TREASURE TROVE

Jun.-Jul. 2019 oncubamagazine.com 47

“My brother Guillermo, who accompanied my father a lot to Venezuela, always used to joke that all the secretaries there were named Gladys.” And the day Alejandra de-cided to begin working seriously in radio, she had to promise her father that her sur-names would not appear. She saw herself as ‘Gladys,’ and she says that she had a vi-sion of the word ‘Palmera’ in her mind, rep-resenting the world of the Americas, which had produced the music that would inspire her on the other side of the Atlantic.

That’s how Alejandra, of Spanish and Panamanian descent, became a radio-woman under the pseudonym of Gladys Palmera. At age 26, she founded her Sabrosura program on a radio station in Pozuelo de Alarcón, west of Madrid, at a time when ballads and pop music were what was primarily listened to in Spain.

Then she went to Barcelona and, in 1999, managed to get 14 hours on the air through the 96.6 FM radio station. Us-ing albums acquired here and there, she played both “historic” and current music, whether folkloric or more urban songs from Mexico, Havana, or New York.

On that radio station, where Alejandra/Gladys played “everything,” she came to have 30 programs specializing in Latin music, with many collaborators. “I didn’t

want to make a radio show where I’d take calls from listeners. I was interested in go-ing deeper into that music, spreading it.” At that point Barcelona was the epicenter of that diffusion, as new batches of Latin American migrants had arrived —many of them to work on construction for the 1992 Olympics— encouraging Barcelona and its surroundings to dance.

Internet came onto the scene just when Alejandra was feeling the need to put forth her best effort to continue col-lecting the music that interested her and to spread it all over the world. She had al-ready become a full-blown collector, one of the few women collectors in the world.

“Radio Gladys Palmera” originated as an online-only oasis for music lovers — a project that was already well-known among musicians and connoisseurs of Latin rhythms and melodies.

In her life, Alejandra has managed to enjoy two freedoms that very few are able

to. The first was to convert a hobby —in her case, radio and music— into a lifestyle. The second was to dedicate her financial resources, derived from a family inheri-tance, to creating a new patrimony com-prised of musical notes, tumbao, and the memories and feelings of many peoples: the largest existing collection of Latin mu-sic, and Cuban music in particular.

Her collection includes some 60,000 vinyl records, approximately 35,000 CDs, and about 3,500 photos, as well as posters, songbooks, specialized magazines, objects related to musicians and record labels, sheet music, letters, and other documents.

AS FOR CUBAN MUSIC, SHE DOESN’T DISTINGUISH BETWEEN MUSIC

CREATED BY CUBANS ON OR OFF THE ISLAND, OR BEFORE

OR AFTER 1959. AND THAT MAKES HER

COLLECTION UNIQUE

RARITIES IN THE “GLADYS PALMERA” COLLECTION

1. The green vinyl album by Arsenio Rodríguez, a curious example of the materials used after World War II.

2. The uncut live recording from the Manhattan Town Hall with Cuban musician Alberto Socarrás, pioneer of Latin music in the United States.

3. The early productions of the Cuban label Panart, recorded around 1942.

4. The first Chano Pozo albums, the only ones recorded in Cuba and with limited circulation.

5. The demo tape of the Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite by Chico O’Farrill with Charlie Parker, a key piece in Latin jazz.

6. Eddie Palmieri’s first recording, at age 14.

7. The 78 rpm albums recorded by Bola de Nieve in New York, Mexico, Argentina, and Spain.

8. Original advertising recordings by Celia Cruz and Benny Moré for beverage brands.

9. The lost recording of Cheo Feliciano and Cuban pianist Lino Frías.

10. Héctor Lavoe’s first recording of with La Newyorker.

11. Tito Puente’s non-commercial recordings for the North American Social Security.

12. The first album by La Lupe, when she was part of Los Tropicuba.

The “Gladys Palmera” Collection con-tains treasures as diverse as the discog-raphy of the New York label Fania, an un-abated catalogue of Latin divas, and a very important collection of African and non-Spanish-speaking Caribbean music.

All this wealth is physically located within the greenery of San Lorenzo del Escorial, north of Madrid, in a house with light flooding the interior, decorated in white and with accents of joy and celebra-

tion represented in pieces of Caribbean craftsmanship or art naïf, where colorful and kitsch posters from films, musical shows, and tours from those prodigious decades of Latin music, the ‘40s and ‘50s.

The collection has been organized with modern digitization and catalog-ing techniques so that it appears on the web. Those who need to research or are

curious about this collection can review technical data, lists of topics included in the albums, and photos of the covers and vinyl plates. Many musicians, producers, and scholars have benefitted from these sources for years, to compose their rep-ertoires, devise remixes, or plan albums.

What Alejandra Fierro Eleta has pur-sued above all, as truly transcendent col-lectors do, is to serve. Few Cubans still know that we have in her an exquisite safe-guarder of part of our culture—keep-ing it from being forgotten through care-lessness or ignorance.

“I’ve always been interested in Cuban music, for its romantic side and for its rhythm. The tear-jerking boleros have seemed to me to be the most authentic,” she comments, explaining her vocation. But when Alejandra is asked why among all Latin music she prefers Cuban music, she surprises with an unexpected adjec-tive: because it’s “elegant.”

Alejandra Fierro (Gladys Palmera)

FOR CUBA’S FEMALE BOXERS, THE BIGGEST FIGHT ISN’T IN THE RING

FEMINISTREVOLUTION…

¡Sĺ!

46 CUBA WITH CHRISTOPHER BAKER

Christopher BakerPhotos by author


women boxers is growing. Some, such as fisiculturista (body-builder) Caridad Villa Castro box purely for the cardio workout and muscular toning. Others, such as Masó and her friend, sparring partner, and would-be fellow Olympic fighter Ida-lemys Moreno, 27, are motivated by a de-sire to deal Cuba’s lingering machismo a knock-out blow.

Hidden amid the sagging, mildewed walls and half-collapsed balconies of southern Habana Vieja, Gimnasio Rafael Trejo occupies a space where a building collapsed long ago. It’s pretty Spartan, de-spite being dolled up for Princes Charles’ visit in March 2019, when a new ring re-placed the cobbled plywood contraption topped by ripped canvas sheets. Gone, too, thanks to a new royal silver paint job, is the centuries of grime soldered by tropical heat into faded pastel paint peel-ing from the walls like scrofulous skin.

Despite the Potemkin village treatment, Gimnasio Rafael Trejo—named for a Cuban law school student killed while protesting against the 1930s Machado presidency—still has serious attitude. (It’s also a photographer’s heaven. I never fail to bring my

photo tour groups here.) It’s been the cradle of virtually every great Cuban boxer, from Kid Chocolate to Félix Savón. Many among Cuba’s 37 Olympic gold medal winners have trained here, despite the antiquated, makeshift, and bare-bones equipment. It’s inspirational to watch. Especially as a new generation of female boxers punches its way in on the action in pursuit of a dream to compete for glory in the “sport for men.”

“Left! Right! Right! Left!” shouts 66-year-old coach Nardo Mestre Flores, demonstrat-ing a one-two punch. A former member of the Cuban boxing team for nine years, Mes-tre—el profesor—and fellow coach, Olympic silver medalist Emilio Correa Jr., have taken Rafael Trejo’s female boxers to heart. Lucía González, 66, who runs the gym, manages Masó, Moreno and 21-year-old Erisnelsy Torres Castillo, the three women who train here for hours every day with their eyes firmly fixed on Olympic gold.

“Our daily struggle is to get the same op-portunities as the men,” Moreno told corre-spondent Kelefa Sanneh for HBO’s The Fight Game: Breaking Barriers in Cuba. “That’s our greatest desire. It’s why we train every day. To represent Cuba just like them.”

Caridad Villa Castro

Coach Nardo Mestre Flores

“Cuban women are meant to be beauti-ful, not get hit in the face,” Pedro Roque, former head coach for the Cuban boxing team, declared a few years ago.

Don’t tell that to Legnis Cala Masó. Her nose is already broken.

Despite which this 28-year-old mum and boxeadora is a knockout. With legs like Ciara, lips like Naomi, and a body as lean as a whippet, she looks out of place in the post-apocalyptic semi-ruin that is the open-air Gimnasio Rafael Trejo. Her rainbow-hued braids and gold necklace fly around wildly as she jabs the air, bobbing and dancing around the gym’s cracked concrete floor. All the other boxers are Afro-Cuban men. Hulking fighting machines of pure muscle, perspiring heavily in the heat of Havana in May.

Masó is wearing a black tank-top with the word “Angel” written in sequins. Her rhinestone earrings sparkle in the tropical sunlight lasering down through gaps in the corrugated tin roof. I watch in awe as she carefully files the flaking ends of her long turquoise nails, then bandages her hands before slipping on a pair of Adidas gloves.

Legnis Cala Masó

Utterly sexy and feminine. But she boxes with two-fisted guts… and a goal. “I want to represent Cuba at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo,” she tells me, wiping the sweat from her brow. “That’s my dream!” There’s just one problem. While Cuban women bring home international medals in such combat sports as wrestling, karate, and judo (Olym-pic gold medalist and three-time World Champion Driulis González is considered the best judoka of the 20th century in the Americas), female boxing in Cuba—where all sports figures are either hobbyists or state employees—is not endorsed. It’s a man’s sport. Masó and several other female boxers were even ejected from a state-run

gym because, said the government sports official, “female boxing is not allowed.”

Wait! What? In Cuba? The country that has done as much as any to advance gender equality and women’s rights?

“We don’t train female boxers for po-litical reasons,” admits four-time world welterweight champion Juan Hernández Sierra, a member of the National Com-mission of the Cuban Boxing Federation. “As a boxer myself, I would not like to see women’s boxing. While I do respect women’s rights, I personally wouldn’t like it. Women are not meant to be hit. Women are for caressing and affection.”Political sounds a lot like male sexual pride.

Nonetheless, the number of Cuban


sports,” Correa told Associated Press reporter Andrea Rodríguez. “The motor skills, the explosive nature and the en-ergy of Cuban boxers are also present in these women.”

Correa inspired Masó, Moreno, and Castillo to take things into their own carefully-wrapped hands and petition for a green light from government offi-cials, including the powerful Federation of Cuban Women (created in 1960 with the objective of promoting political and social reform to achieve full gender equal-ity for woman in all areas and levels of society). Dishearteningly, they received no response. Officials such as Cuban Box-ing Federation president Alberto Puig de la Barca sound like an old broken record with their refrain: “It’s a matter that’s un-der evaluation.”

Changing the minds of Cuba’s govern-ment burro-crats is a process slower than rigor mortis.

“If in Cuba the moment comes when women can box, Hatzumy will be the first,” says boxing Luis Pérez Duverg, proudly. Pérez coaches at Gimnasio La Cuevita. A true gimnasio del barrio, this humble extemporized space in Centro Habana makes Gimnasio Rafael Trejo seem like Madison Square Garden.

“Harder, hit harder! Watch what you’re doing! Don’t lower your hand!” screams Pérez, as 13-year-old Hatzumy Carmenate —the subject of a beautiful video by The New Yorker magazine, Fighting Cuba’s Boxing Ban— crouches and covers, throws jabs and hooks, and dances around like a butterfly.

“In the USA and Europe, boxing is based on strength. Here, ours is like mastering a dance… If you can’t dance in Cuba, you can’t box,” claims Pérez.

Ha! No wonder Cubans rule the ring like it’s a dance floor.

“My mom doesn’t like me boxing. She says it’s too violent,” admits Masó, puffing after pummeling a punch bag that can’t take many more rounds. “But we get many female fighters from other countries

who visit Rafael Trejo to train. If they’ll give us permission to fight in competitions, I think we’ll do well. One day soon it will happen,” she adds, cheerily.

“Yes, but do you know how to dance?” I ask her mischievously.

“Oh, yes. I love salsa,” she repliesThe sweat, the occasional blood… and

the broken nose? That’s nothing! Getting permission is the fight she, Moreno, and Torres most passionately hope to win.

Moreno earns a small state salary teaching wrestling and sports and track-and-field at the University of Havana. But Masó relies on a share of the fee charged to photography groups and others that visit Rafael Trejo. For now, it’s as close as she can come to being classed as a professional boxer.

Legnis Cala Masó sparring

They’re the protégés of Namibia Flores, subject of Boxeadora, as well as Namib-ia: Cuba’s Female Boxing Revolution and Two Beautiful: Our Right to Fight, three documentaries that have shone a spotlight on female boxing in Cuba. For a long time the only female boxer in Cuba, Flores is the very symbol of the nation’s revolutionary spirit. “If she were in any other country, this woman would be a national champion,” says Mestre, who discovered her boxing tal-ent a decade ago and fueled the idea of an Olympic medal in her head. Ever since, she has trained five hours a day—every day—in the hope that someday the Commission might approve women’s boxing.

“But that day never came,” says Flores, now 43 and too old to fight in the Olym-pics. “My chance to compete has ended. But la mulatica [Idalemys Moreno], Chiqui [Erisnelys Torres], and all the other new girls who’ve quit their jobs and other sports to train as boxers have great po-tential. If they train hard, they could soon bring medals home.”

“They can bring more glory to Cuban

Namibia Flores

Namibia Flores

52

ALEJANDRA ESTEFANÍA IS INSPIRED: "I’LL TRAVEL TO CUBA TO MEET THE BOY WITH THE FLOWER"

Marita Pérez DíazPhotos: Courtesy of the artist

Someone who buys Alejandra Estefanía’s art traveled to Cuba and, upon return to the United States, brought her a photo as a gift. The snapshot of a Cuban boy hold-ing a flower inspired in Alejandra one of the paintings she’s proudest of.

The painting sparked endless com-ments on Instagram about who the child was and who the flower was for, a story that Alejandra hopes to discover one day.

“The purpose of my art is to inspire peo-ple, that they feel powerful when they view it, no matter where they are,” said Alejan-dra, a 29-year-old artist based in Miami.

COMING SOON!


CUBAN ART EXPERIENCE WITH ALEJANDRA & MOJOAll-Inclusive 5 days Program

Departs: NOVEMBER 2019LIMITED SPOTS. BOOK NOW!

CONTACT US TODAY!Call: +1 ((305) 602-0219

Email: [email protected] us at: www.oncubatravel.com

Born in Ecuador, she grew up in North Carolina since she was four years old. Al-though she had never studied art before, at the age of 19 she had the feeling that her purpose was to express herself through painting, something her immigrant mother did not welcome. At 21 she decided to go to Miami, with $100 in her pocket and a huge desire to attend the art institute there.

“I had to work very hard to achieve it, but doors opened because I was ready and focused on my true vocation,” says Alejandra. “When I came to Miami I felt that I could be in my culture, be myself, live my Latino identity,” she added.

“Cuban culture is very strong in Miami and the Cubans welcomed me as a sister, there was no line to divide us, I felt like family.” But for a long time, Alejandra has had a spiritual and professional need to visit Cuba. She says that it would help her to be inspired even more for her future works. That’s why she decided to par-ticipate along with her fiancé, the artist Mojo, in an exclusive trip to Havana next November, organized by OnCuba Travel.

Only eight people will have the oppor-tunity to share with them the adventure of discovering the colors and flavors of Ha-vana, in private meetings with top artists on the island, visits to the main art muse-ums, and other activities including seaside yoga sessions and Cuban food tastings.

“For those who decide to join this ex-perience, I’m sure it will be unforgettable and, being a small group, we’ll have the unique opportunity to connect with art-ists on the island and among ourselves,” said Alejandra.

For her, the trip also means the possi-bility of understanding and learning more about Miami’s own Cuban culture, a way of creating ties with the environment that inspires her. Her art is well received by the Cuban community in South Florida, which chose her design for the Miami Carnival poster in 2019.

Now, after establishing herself as a successful artist, she likes to see herself as a “teacher of good things,” so she com-bines her artistic work with motivational talks and volunteer work at different com-munity centers.

In one of those centers she had an en-counter that inspired her to finish a paint-

ing she had been working on for a long time. It was with another black boy (like the Cuban child in the photo) who she met in a shelter “miraculously,” and could not get out of her imagination.

“The child was identical to the one I was painting and couldn’t finish. I knew it right away and it was magical.” Their conversation had an impact on Alejandra, who finally finished the piece. The paint-ing, one of her most famous, is entitled “Where the Flowers Bloom.”

“People not only buy my art, but the story behind the piece, and that’s why I like to connect with my buyers, with those who consume my art.”

On her Instagram page, Alejandra shares some of those stories with her more than 23,000 followers, through which she hopes she will “change as many lives as she can.”

In Cuba, Alejandra will not only visit visual artists, but also hopes to find the unknown child in the photo to give him a copy of her painting and learn more about his story. “I’m very excited to know more about the origins of Cuban culture, the history of Cuba, and to meet so many tal-ented artists,” said Alejandra.

“And I’m excited to meet the boy in my painting and perhaps find out who the flower was for, which he held so tenderly and strongly in his hands.”

"Rasgos". Ernesto Rancaño, visual artist

56 PHOTO FEATURE

The idea behind the series Retratos (Portraits) arose some years ago as a result of my work as a photogra-

pher in the project at the Fábrica de Arte Cubano, where I had the opportunity to connect with different artistic

manifestations, and to interact and collaborate with dif-ferent artists and learn more about their work.

From this interaction and the interest that I have always had for portraiture as a concept within photography, I begin to develop the first series of portraits of artists,

with the intention of showing not only their work but the very essence of the human being portrayed, and which

is not always perceptible to the naked eye.

The portraits have a performative character, where the light, the color selection or lack thereof, the objects used,

and the composition become expressive resources in function of my previous personal interpretation of the

subject- and which in some cases is enriched by the spon-taneity of the process and the relationship that is born at

that moment with the artist him or herself.

PORTRAITS

DANAY NÁPOLES


Black Gold. Cimafunk, singer

Beats. Pauza DJ

"Anc

estr

os".

Est

erio

Seg

ura,

vis

ual a

rtis

t


DANAY NÁPOLES Visual artist and photographerB. 1988, Havana, CubaLives and works in Havana

She began her self-taught photography career at age 19, inspired by subjects from everyday life. Her increasing ties to the arts world brought her work to new cre-ative horizons as she began to participate in collective exhibitions and collaborate on different projects, solidifying her reputa-tion as a photographer.

As co-founder of Dynamicart Grupo Cre-ativo, which is dedicated to audiovisual and photographic creation, she has been able to develop her talent not only as a photog-rapher but also to be involved in different audiovisual projects such as documentary films, spot promotions, and music videos, allowing her to gain experience that has been vital to her profesional trajectory.

She was involved in the Fábrica de Arte Cubano as a photographer since its beginnings, covering important events in Cuban art and culture, and allowing her to explore documentary photography in more depth. She has also collaborated with publications such as OnCuba, Cuba Contemporánea, Vistar, and Garbos mag-azines. She has also worked with cultur-ally and socially focused NGOs such as OIKOS and UNICEF, and with other Cuban and foreign artists. On a personal level, her photography has taken on an increasingly conceptual style, benefitting from the reserve of knowledge acquired over the years, transforming her subject matter and approaching it from an analytical and subjective perspective. Currently, she is developing her own project, called Retratos (Portraits), which has been shown in personal exhibitions in Cuba and abroad.

"Parábola". Leo Brouwer, Composer, Orchestra Director, Guitarist

"Deconstrucción". Luis Alberto García, actor

Bla

ck G

old.

Cim

afun

k, s

inge

r

El ser interno-1

LIGHT & SHADOWS62

SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ OLAZÁBAL (b. Havana, 1955) is a son of the Yoruba deity Oshún. He’s an artist who, since the beginning of his career as a painter, knew that he carried his subject matter “deep inside.” His ancestors were practitioners of Regla de Ocha and he was raised in a profoundly religious home. His work has several main themes: memory, worship, and spirituality exude from symbols that come from the Cuban Santeria religion. Without a doubt, he is a man whose deep faith spills out in every gesture and word. It seems that his great-grandfather, Ramón Febles, son of Changó and connoted priest of Ifá, sowed the primal roots of which he feels he is both heir and mantle-carrier.

Ola

zába

l DEFENDING THE HERITAGE OF MY ANCESTORS

Estrella DíazPhotos: Otmaro Rodríguez


that those who appropriate this topic in order to make money do not respect the immense legacy of which we are deposi-taries. You cannot and should not do a piece thinking about how much you’re go-ing to earn, because then you’re catering to the market and that’s a very serious er-ror that, surely, will have consequences.”

He confesses that in the beginning, his perspective was very primitivist and he leaned towards the work of artist Manuel Mendive, whose influence is obvious in his early work; but soon he began search-ing until he found his own style. Within his generation, from the 1980s, several artists approached the topic, but Olazábal has the merit of being one of the first: “I touched on that theme, but always moving away from the carnivalesque and the colorful;

Red, white, and black were the colors primitive man used to make art and Olazábal assimilated them from his own cosmogony: “White means bones, our bones; black has to do with darkness and the underworld. And red is life, blood; it is the color of that primordial essence with which we feed the deities. But if the work demands a blue or a green, I apply them without any inconvenience,” he empha-sizes respectfully.

“I’m not interested,” he insists, “in whether they approve or not. I simply do my job because I feel that I am defending something that is above all of us: It’s not about my culture, it’s our culture, the Cuban culture. I don’t care if you like it or

not. I do what I feel I have to do and I would be a coward if I didn’t do it because I’m defending my ancestors’ heritage. I have never felt censored, nor has anyone come to me to say that I can’t exhibit here or there. On the contrary, I’ve had the opportunity to exhibit at important museums and galleries in Cuba and abroad.”

And it’s true. In the recently concluded 13th Havana Biennial (from April 12 to May 12, 2019), Santiago Rodríguez de Olazábal participated in several projects. Perhaps the most provocative was the exhibition of contemporary Cuban art, ‘HB,’ exhibited in the Alicia Alonso Grand Theater of Havana. Olazábal was there with his work and the deities that accompany him.

Address: Avenida 21 no. 4617 between 46 and 48. Playa. Havana, Cuba

Telephone: +53 7209-1835. Cell: 535 431 6751

Email: [email protected]; [email protected]

Website: www.santiago-olazabal.com

“I FOCUSED

ON THE

THOUGHT AND

COSMOGONY

OF RELIGION,

WHICH HAS AN

ENDLESS AND

IMMEASURABLE

HERITAGE.” Dos que son uno

With great sincerity, Santiago Rodríguez Olazábal says: “I did not discover art, art discovered me. I entered the San Alejandro Academy almost by chance and I had dif-ferent cultural references.”

He had a happy childhood in a Havana tenement house where he played ball, four-square, marbles, and quimbumbia, rode on Cuban-style skateboards, and flew kites. Definitely a far cry from the world of colors, crayons and poster board.

When he arrived at the San Alejandro Arts Academy, he said, “I felt very strange because it was a distant place for me, but little by little, it completely changed my way of perceiving life and behaving.”

He recognizes that he had excellent teachers, such as, among many others, Os-valdo García, Ever Fonseca, José Antonio Díaz Peláez, Juan Moreira, and Lidia Verd-alles, and he visited the classroom where Flora Fong taught painting. Although he opted to specialize in sculpture, drawing was what “has captivated him to this day.”

When one sculpts, he says, it’s like drawing in 3D because three-dimen-sionality has its own characteristics and rules: “I always say that I am a frustrated sculptor because practicing that specialty in Cuba is very difficult since it requires resources and space. That led me to bet on drawing, which for me is a way of speaking, it’s like a calligraphy. When you write, you’re drawing, and for me drawing allows me to transmit thoughts and ideas through lines, points and shapes.”

Words have a deep strength within his work, which is very coherent if one takes into account that Santeria is based on a deep-rooted oral tradition: “When a spell is cast, an invocation or praise is used, called the omi tutu. That is, by offering an omi tutu to the deities you are making a libation with water and therefore reactivating your spiri-tuality. All this is done through words, pho-netics, ways of speaking, and the cadence in that prayer or in that invocation.”

Symbols also play a prominent role and help Olazábal communicate ideas and moods. “In my work, everything has a purpose and there are no extraneous elements; everything is based on the lit-erary body of what is known as Regla de Ocha,” he says. But it should be noted that in his work he “doesn’t represent dei-ties,” but rather reinterprets what comes to him through human figures: “It’s true that I have portrayed deities such as Iyami Osoronga, a cult that only very powerful women can belong to, which is ruled by

three deities: Oshún, Yemayá and Oyá.”The work of this genuine artist is

distinguished by formal, clean, and uncomplicated compositions. This is surely the result of the refining process that is characteristic of him: “First the ideas arrive, perhaps from some Ifá text or dreams —because I enjoy a very active dream life— and, sometimes, I see things when I’m awake.... This doesn’t mean that I appreciate them physically, but that I

feel them in another dimension. When these ideas come, I make notes that are either written or in small sketches of figures. These figures are what lead me to the foundation of the piece.”

From his pictorial work, which is ulti-mately his artistic platform, Olazábal has combatted the notion that religion or any religious theme is treated with a festive and folkloric nature, because “there is a depth of knowledge and so much to learn

La otra realidad

Alicia GarcíaPhotos: Otmaro Rodríguez

Within the limits of the neighborhoods of Mantilla and Calvario, on the outskirts of Havana, sits Divino, a private restaurant that is part of an agro-ecological and community project within the Finca Integral La Yoandra.

In colonial times this area was called Finca La Carbonera and African slaves worked there. There were also stone quarries and tile facto-ries, where permanent labor was provided by slaves. It is even said that slaves were subcon-tracted by their owners for the constructions of mansions within the city walls of Havana.

The restaurant is located on the terrace of the country house, between columns and arches and among the beauty of the natural environment. In its basement, they have a wine cellar with an exquisite selection, in-cluding Margaux, Brunello di Montalcino 1997, Vega Sicilia Único de Ribera del Duero, Chablis, and Dom Perignon champagne. The restaurant is filled with an extraordinary and unique collection of antiques—objects, docu-ments, and photographs related to beverage and liquor brands—including tools, souve-nirs, Coca-Cola made in Cuba, and ceramic beer bottles brought to the island in galle-ons. In short, it’s a trip through the history of drinking on this Caribbean archipelago.

DIVINO

GASTRONOMIC REVIEW66


its story.” For example, the natural juices are unremarkable, and even the lemonade was prepared with lemon concentrate.

The farm where Divino is located was granted a prize for excellence by the Nation-al Urban and Suburban Agriculture Group of the Ministry of Agriculture. Its owner, Yo-andra Álvarez, has also developed several community projects, the best known is La Casa del Campesino, a nineteenth-century style hut visited daily by elderly neighbors for free lunch and healthy entertainment and according to their tastes.

On a farm tour, one can see native plant varieties as well as others that were brought to Cuba —such as yucca and plantains, which arrived with the African slaves— all with their identification cards. There’s also a relic, an original cart moved from the city of Bayamo, in which slaves and sugar cane were transported centuries ago.

Divino doesn’t yet meet the standards of haute cuisine or excellent service; how-ever, one can enjoy Bertha’s unique sea-sonal blend and cooking, the humility of its servers and the friendliness of its own-

The pork loin is smoked naturally, with red mangrove that gives it a very special and unique aroma and flavor, and it’s macerated with sour orange, salt, cumin, and ground pepper and served on a thick wooden board decorated with a “Cuban-ized” peperonata, since the locally pro-duced onion, pepper, and tomato result in a more pronounced fusion of flavor than the original recipe. On this occasion, the meat had a certain dryness from the loss of its own juice due to over-exposure to the oven’s heat. Shrimp with garlic is served in clay pots, dipped in olive oil perfumed with abundant garlic carved in small rounds, honoring this classic con-diment of Cuban cuisine. Despite being over-cooked, the shrimp is a good option. The salads with natural farm-grown veg-etables, and bright colors, freshness, and textures, are unforgettable.

It’s my opinion that Divino can take more advantage of what they produce on the farm and also be more creative, thus granting more coherence and charm to the place’s slogan: “Where the earth tells

ers. There we discover much more than a cocktail, a good wine, or a good meal. We discover our own values, anchored in the strengths of Cuban rurality and an intel-ligent and efficient marketing strategy.

If you want to get out of the city, see the greenery of the countryside, enjoy the aromas and flavors closest to the earth, go to Divino, in the neighborhood of Mantilla, where the most famous Cuban contemporary narrator, Leonardo Padura Fuentes, was born and still lives.

EVALUATION:GOODDining room: 8.5Kitchen: 9Bar: 8.85Total: 8.81

Divino’s specialty is its wood and charcoal cooking, dating back to the African slave days, and including organic food, much of which comes from the La Yoandra estate, worked and preserved with excellent cleanli-ness, a guarantee of food safety. It is no coin-cidence that Bertha, the great-granddaugh-ter of Africans who were taken to a town in Matanzas called Santa Ana, has been the house cook for many years and now is the restaurant chef, which gives a homemade touch to the culinary preparations.

The menu is unique, with Cuban and international dishes, and some options designed for the local customer (at more affordable prices) while also providing an interesting experience for foreign tourists. The price-quality ratio is good, although not perfect. Assortments of appetizers range between 5 and 6 CUC, and include pork rinds, croquettes, stuffed tostones, crab empanadas, fried pork masitas, and cheese cubes, among others. For 16 CUC one can select a picadera that includes a bottle of white wine. This section of the menu is at-tractive, because in Cuba there are not al-ways well-thought choices for light eating paired with a drink at such a pleasant place. The different breads are handmade on site and baked in their ovens, and the home-made ice creams —passion fruit, mamey, guava, vanilla, and peanut, among other flavors— are made in their small factory.


ERNEST HEMINGWAY INTERNATIONAL FISHING TOURNAMENT10-15Hemingway MarinaMore than 400 fishermen will travel to Havana from all over the world to participate in the marlin fishing competition, in homage to the famous American writer Ernest Hemingway. Organized by the International Hemingway Club with the support of the International Federation of Sport Fishing and the Ministry of Tourism, the contest was established in 1950, and is one of the most important of its kind. It will use the tag-and-release method in order to protect the species.

JULY

TARDES DE JAZZEvery ThursdayMalecon 663The terrace of the boutique hotel Malecón 663 offers a weekly jam session from 7 to 11 pm. An unfor-gettable evening with excellent views of the sea, drinks, and tapas.

GIBARA FILM FESTIVAL7-13Gibara, HolguínAudiovisual directors from all over the world will pres-ent their work and share experiences in independent and self-financed film productions at the Gibara Film Festival, organized by Cuban actor Jorge Perugorría and others. The wonderful city will be a giant screen for the best independent films in the world, attracting prestigious Cuban and foreign directors and actors.

PAZILLO PRIDEEvery WednesdayPazillo Bar, El Vedado A night for diversity in the Pazillo Bar at Calle 5 between 4th and 6th streets; an excellent ambiance with cocktails, tapas, a show, raffles, and more.

A THOUSAND CHILDREN ON STAGE ... AND MORE!12-16 Martí TheaterMore than one thousand students from Lizt Alfonso Dance Cuba celebrate the end of the course with five days of shows and new choreographies.

JUNE

AQUELARRE 2019June 30-July 7 Havana Theaters Comedians, actors, and theater groups participate in the 15th edition of the Aquelarre National Humor Festival in the categories of revue or humorous work, one-man show, monologue, stand-up comedy, parody, original song and sketch.

Ale R. ChangIllustration: Guillo Moreno

AMPM LATIN AMERICA THROUGH ITS MUSIC17-22The Cuban Art Factory, Casa de las Américas and the Cuban Ludwig Foundation An annual platform for music profes-sionals in Latin America, dedicated in this edition to communication and marketing. Interactions with specialists helping to increase the international visibility of Latin American music. The conference includes professional ses-sions, talks on the connection between music and technology, project pitches, training courses and workshops, show-cases and concerts by prominent Cu-ban and Latin American artists, as well as related activities and exhibitions.

the most personal travel experience to cuba

Documents