Pachi Naranjo, Cuban National Music Award 2011

By Amauris Betancourt.

I am far from being an expertise at music though I listen to all sort of music, personal preferences I have, depending on the context. Sometimes I have no choice of course. And I hardly dance -very bad of me!- because I don not only need the help of lights.  

Oh, that`s me beating around the bush. I just only wanted to share my pleasure when I heard Wilfredo “Pachy” Naranjo, the Original de Manzanillo band director, had been presented with the Cuban National Music Award 2011. This group has been long one of my favorite. A thousand congratulations to Pachy!

Carlos Acosta, Cuba's National Dance Award 2011, Performs in Holguín

By Amauris Betancourt.

The Eddy Suñol theater sold out completely: Carlos Acosta's first performance in Holguín. The audience reluctant in the beginning, very excited later clapping hands madly. Acosta won them over easily with his art. The chello player Amparo del Riego and contemporary dancer Laura Ríos kept him company.

 

He was awarded with the Hijo Ilustre and the Angelote distinctions  to aknowledge his work as an outstandig rep of the Cuban culture.

A book by him will come out soon in England: Pata de puerco. He hopes he can publish it in Cuba.  He also announced the shooting of a movie about his life.  

And said, lastly, he wants to widen his repertoire, not necessarily with classic pieces.

Cuba Pictured by Soul Dance

By Amauris Betancourt.

 

Art feeds generally on life experiences and represents them esthetically always hoping, more than drawing attention, to make people reflect and to pave the way for changes or at least to bring them up. 

 

There are thousand of motives which are brought up by the research of the artists engaged with the social environment. The pieces by Danza del Alma (Soul Dance) a contemporary dance company from Villa Clara, stands out for the well-chosen topics and the staging of choreographies stemming from every-day life conflicts of modern man.

 

Pelotón (platoon) and Juegos de  Guerra (War Games), two of the three pieces staged at the Eddy Suñol theater in Holguín City, deal with Cuban people's every-day life existential depictions  and worries of a society approached precisely from the view point of a contemporary Cuban ballet company combining, this time, war and cultural themes. 

 

 

Soul Dance showed an artistic solid discourse thanks to its interpreters, all men, who transferred histrionically and with symbolism the inspiration theme provoking laughs although an interior reflexive look on reality prevailed.

  

The company, founded in 1995 and headed by choreographer Ernesto Alejo Sosa touring the Island now, made its last presentation in Holguín last night. The Suñol theater, after its re-inauguration, is in need of these artistic casts to recover the public that it always had. 

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Cuban Nacional Ballet Performs in Holguín

By Amauris Betancourt.

The Cuban National Ballet (BNC) presented this Sunday in the sold-out Eddy Suñol theater a program to be repeated today at 9:00 p.m.

 

Five pieces were interpreted by young members of the BNC who pleased the audience with the choreographies Muñecos by Alberto Méndez, Majísimo by Jorge García, Dionaea by Gustavo Herrera and Dialogo a 4 by Alicia Alonso.

 

The BNC’s last performance in Holguín took place in the 80s. This time the program is dedicated  to the Ibero-American House and to the IV Encounter of  International Solidarity Art Brigades taking place now.

Holguín Turned into Eastern Rock Capital with Metal HG

Rock bands arrived in Holguín from Ciego de Ávila, Havana City, Cienfuegos to join to local ones in the 13th Metal HG Rock Festival sponsored by the Hermanos Saíz Association (AHS) and the Cuban Rock Agency.

Debates and workshops on the influence of rock music within the new generations of artists, as well the link between rock and literature and the way it is focus in mass media, took place.

Asgard, from Cienfuegos made its debut in Holguín; Agonizer, made the dancing temperature go up over the main stage at the Young Artists’ House, headquarters to the event and to the AHS, just like Condenados, Kallejeros, Treament Choice, Suffering Tool and other bands to add up 17 in total.

The Fest has its continuity in The May Pilgrimage with the Rock-merías, sort of rock-(pilgr)image, a collateral event for the sake of rock artists and followers of that music.

Children Carnival Holguín 2011 Kicks Off

Sight of the Los Libertadores avenue from up a carnival carriage.

Carriages, dancing carnival groups and walking choreography groups as well as clowns  navigate all the way through the Libertadores Avenue from Holguín city, amid a sea of laughs, bright eyes, big and small hands –up and down, interwoven– and infantile fearful faces to the sight of macabre and daredevils disguises.

So starts the Holguín 2011 Carnival always preceded by the little carnival, the younger version of the Popular Parties celebrated from one extreme to the other one of the Cuban Island.

After the parade there will be a concert by the infantile salsa group The Sagüeritos and other artistic presentations in the area of the parking-lot of the Calixto García baseball park while refreshments and sweets are being sold.

 About happiness, fears, dancing and family walkings.

Eddy Suñol Theater Already Open

By Amauris Betancourt.

The Holguín Eddy Suñol theater was re-inaugurated, after ten years closed, with a Big Cultural Gala that included pianist Frank Fernández, the Rodrigo Prats Lyrical Company, the Holguín Symphony Orquestra, and two members of the Cuban National Ballet.   More info