Interview with Amauris Betancourt on 50 Years of Revolution

By Isabel García Granado.

Isabel García Granado’s interview with Amauris Betancourt, Radio Angulo Digital's photoreporter, in Café Millenio, a cultural program from the CMKO Angulo Radio Broadcasting Station, the author of the photographic exposition “ Holguín: 50 Years of Revolution”, inaugurated recently.

Isabel García Granados (IGG): Thanks for coming to our program and many congratulations for Christmas Eve and for the exhibit.

Amauris Betancourt Gómez (ABG): Thanks Isabel for the invitation and my greetings to listeners, to you and to Néstor.

IGG: 50 photos gathered 50 important moments from the daily life of present-day Cubans. I read the writer Manuel García Verdecia’s praising words for the catalogue about your work, but I would like to know about the curatorship process, specifically of that many images that a photographer always has when picking up given photos for an exhibition.

ABG: First of all I want to express my thankfulness to Professor Manuel García Verdecia, my professor at the university, because of the words for that catalogue and also to Fabio Ochoa for helping me choose the photographs.
I went through the archives of four years of work and I selected initially 243 photos. Next I turned to journalist and designer Fabio Ochoa for a reduced selection. Although usually I devote myself to editing photos, to edit for others is much easier. Self-editing proves to be quite difficult. We picked up firstly 92, then 60, to finally get, with the photographer Juan Miguel Cruz's help, the 50 ones already on exhibit.

IGG: It all has a thematic diversity that I guess it must be related to your work as a photojournalist?

ABG: It is. The photo, in photojournalism as well as in the art field, if it is loved, always receives that creative component although objectivity in journalism renders quite important in favor of subjectivity in art photography.
However, when it comes to getting across a message we turn to a given composition to be able to achieve proper communication. To a certain extent, many of the pictures are closely related to photojournalism in a journey through the achievements in the present-day Cuban society, in 50 years of the January Revolution: education, sports, nickel – so important for the country’s economy, and the rallies that have joined Cubans are not missing; and culture, of course, which I go in for and what is so important for the Island.
There are also images related with Angulo Radio Broadcasting Station where I currently work. As to the theme of culture, I have portraits of personalities that are as such institutions, part of our history, not only in Holguín but in Cuba. The Nicolas de la Peña’s portrait I like very much for instance. Nicolás is linked not only to Holguín’s history but to the one belonging to Cuba because he broke the news that Fidel was still alive in Alegría de Pío when newspapers said he had died.

IGG: Besides he is a man that dedicated a long time to radiojornalism at this own broadcasting station. Amauris, you talked about objectivity and subjectivity ¿how do you manage to bring them into line as a photographer?

ABG: Objectivity is very important in the photojournalist message you must convey to readers. I look, in my photo work basically for Internet in a digital edition for the whole world, for something picturing and identifying Cuba. I make use continuously of the Cuban flag or some other element of idiosyncrasy: music, dance, joy, coquetry. And subjectivity is that aspect that can be read above and beyond what the photo really depicts. Roland Barthes, a French semiotitian, refers to this duality relationship in photography: the denoted and connoted message. I bear this in mind besides the influence of Cartier Bresson, forerunner of contemporary photojournalism. And I include my cultural interests because I majored in a university specialty related with letters..

IGG: What did you major in?

ABG: English philology. I wanted to learn English. Learning a language means drinking from that culture that backs it up.

IGG: And when doing photoreports sometimes you do works out of assignments, but there is always a personal pleasure for given topics. In your case, which would they be?

ABG: I am interested in cultural topics and social photography because I have social worries. I try reflecting many things that worry us as human beings; I try to honor musicians, cultural leaders, the ones we see in a film or on TV, writers, the ones we look up to as examples to our existence, the ones we admire as public personalities.
This career has given me the opportunity to know face to face the ones I read, listened to or saw on TV and movies.
I try to come out with messages related to social issues and to get close to the human being behind public faces.

IGG: You have a list of acknowledgement: Designer Adrián López, Cary Sayas, Jormit, the Cuban Social Communication Association (ACCS), to Angulo Radio Broadcasting Station.

ABG: The original idea belongs to Jaime Batista (the ACCS's president) and I thank too Angulo Radio Broadcasting Station, in the person of our director Moraima López, who in a casual and fortunate lunch made the exhibit come true. Fabio helped me a lot; Adrián, with the poster; and, of course , Jormit can not be left out. He did the montage of the exposition. If I have the gratitude of the ones that approached and congratulated me I owe it to Jormit also.

IGG: Thanks to Amauris then, the photographer of the 50 images about today’s Cuba, whom likes digging into cultural topics and getting close to the yeast behind faces that make up the Cuban society. Thank you very much Amauris.

50 Instants of a Revolutionary Cuba

By Leandro Estupiñán. Thursday, December 25, 2008. leandro@ahora.cu

The exhibit by the photographer Amauris Betancourt “Holguín: 50 Years of Revolution”, was inaugurated this Wednesday at the gallery of the CMKO Provincial Broadcasting Radio-station as a way to pay homage to the anniversary of this historic event. The exhibit is made up of 50 photographs, out of the daily life, which, seen through the artist's sensitive look, acquire an artistic value. According to Manuel García Verdecia, writer and Cuban Artist and Writers Association (UNEAC) vice-president in Holguín, who presented the exhibit, Betancourt is a man that likes seeing rather than looking at the world that wraps him up.

Thus, ordinary moments achieve the height of memorable events such as the interpretation of the 1812 symphony by the Holguín symphony orchestra, directed by María Elena Mendiola, at the Major General Calixto García Íñiguez Revolution Square in the beginning of this year.
Sportsmen, internationally famous artists and the everyday life imagery evoking Revolution heroes and leaders, were picked up by this aforementioned broadcasting station Web site photographer.
Recently, the book De Cuba, Holguín was also given out, illustrated with Betancourt's images and a text written by narrator Lourdes González.

Photography Exhibit “Holguín: 50 years of Revolution”

By Manuel García Verdecia.

A great poet once said: The eye sighted is no eye because you see it; / it is eye because it sees you. And these verses are useful, extrapolating them, for my referring them to the photographer's art: it is not because we see his photographs; it is essentially and significantly because we bear out he sees. Seeing means will, sensitivity, awareness of a perspective and a utility. The photo exhibit, which is being opened to everyone’s wanting-to-look-at-it eyes, is meant to pay homage to the most decisively turning point in our country's history, the triumph of the olive-green Revolution. The young photographer Amauris Betancourt climbs so a higher step in his short but well en-route career, which already includes no few achievements.
A conscientious look is observed in the photographer works; mindful of what it happens in the ever-changing daily life, of the gestures revealed in men in his acting on earth. The exhibit is made up of 50 photos picked up after a hard work of decanting, very complex if it is taken into account that a reporter's work piles up images with an almost exponential increase. It grows up with the passing of days due to the tuning of his perspicacity, the familiarity with the occupation and the rooting of an ineffable need of catching instants. But, as he had to arrange sort of a panorama to show, rather than the art of the photographer, the art to produce a country during half a century – it does not mean leaving out quality while choosing –, because the artist has imposed strict boundaries.
However, Amauris succeeds. Different contingencies, one way or another, of a group of human beings are portrayed here while making an effort and displaying their potential in divergent uneven existence paths: work, study, art, sports, recreation. That is, the assortment of life. Taking a good look three subjects are dealt with and brought once and again to the surface repeatedly making up the exhibit’s spinal cord. In the first place, human groups. Even though there are some excellent photos dedicated to personalities of the culture – Mario Kindelán, Silvio, Nicolás de la Peña, Estela, Solás, Frank Fernández –, priority is not set on individuality, but on the movement of human groups. This is noteworthy because it is a decisive aspect of the process we have lived these years. Some men joined to others, linked, performing on in a common purpose. Another aspect is the endurance of life. Beings striving, making the most of it in an assignment: at the installation of a nickel belt conveyor or some high-tension lines or a theatre stage, the baseball stadium or the classroom. But there are always people doing, assuming their jobs in strive with life. The third subject, no less interesting, touches on gestures synthesizing an existence's significant element. The sports hero to the shade of another greater hero, with equal meditative attitude; the hands of the reporter fixing the data that will become later the news touring the world over; the artistic director or the audio technician paying attention meticulously to what he does; the barber fulfilling scrupulously his role while reflecting the elapsed time; the elementary school student sleeping with a watchful flag in her cheek; the rude hand holding the trimming hook in the break amid work.

They are, in my opinion, the higher instants of the exhibit, for its warmth and depth in picturing the man in his daily life and, at the same time, in his greatness. Amauris defines very accurately his subjects. He uses properly framing to expose what he aims at and to avoid undue ambiguities. He likes the contrasts of lines, as well as the shades of light revealing the dynamics of the photographed object. In short, he knows how to demonstrate the intentionality that moves him, because without it there is no art.

Let's congratulate the artist for this photographic exposition, well balanced and expressive in its broadest sense. This shown art makes justice to the event he pays homage to. I said it already in the beginning: “The eye sighted is no eye because you see it; / it is eye because he sees you”, he sees us; he sees everything and he sees it sympathetically, with delicacy, with a man’s attentive feeling.

The Jose Marti Publishing House Releases Book on Holguin

By Jose Miguel Avila / Wednesday, 24 December 2008 / editorweb@radioangulo.icrt.cu

(Dec. 23) The Jose Marti publishing house has just released the chromed book ‘De Cuba Holguin’ which portrays views of that eastern Cuban province.

The book stands out many features of that gorgeous Cuban site that Christopher Columbus baptized as the most beautiful land human eyes have ever seen.

Its geography, flora, fauna, history, culture and tourism values are targeted in the pages of this text.

Its authors, poet and narrator Lourdes Gonzalez Herrero and photographer Amauris Betancourt Gomez, through chronicles and reports written very minutely along with pictures very accurately chosen, take the reader to enjoy a text that describes the places in Holguin noone dares to miss.

The book, which was printed in Colombia by the Graficas de la Sabana printing house, was edited by Mayra Fernandez Peron, corrected by Maritza Vazquez Valdes, and designed and composed by the also Holguin expert, Andro Liuben Perez Diz.

The text has come out in Spanish, English, French and German -one thousand copies in each language- to give the reader the chance of widening his/her information required when it comes to Holguin, whose tourism industry ranks third in the country, besides being one of the most important regions in Cuba for its culture, population, natural resources and history.

The net of bookstores of ARTEX company is selling the book ‘De Cuba Holguin’ at eight convertible pesos (CUC).

Baseball Starts Spectacularly in Holguín

By Amauris Betancourt.

Holguín's baseball team, alias the Pups, played yesterday the first match as Home Club against Metropolitanos in the currently Cuban National Baseball League.

The Major General Calixto García stadium, its headquarters, was sold out. The fans wanted to see the Olympic sub-champion star Luis Miguel Rodríguez pitch but the outstanding supersonic sub-world champion Aroldis Chapman did instead, though both are pillars in the team.
The game fulfilled expectations for followers of the provincial selection with only one defeat in six matches. The main course, the left-handed pitcher Chapman's 10 strikeouts; the best, the two homeruns by Leris Aguilera that helped score seven out of eight runs.

Leris Aguilera's first home run.

Pitcher Rolando Mella closed spectacularly and Holguin is glad with the team’s winning string.
Luis Miguel Rodriguez is expected today at the pitching hill.

The Báguano's Count, as they call him too, was granted before the game started, the Dignity's Microphone (micrófono de la Dignidad), an award from the Provincial Radio Stations Board in Holguín to personalities from different fields.

Cuban Troubadour Threatened by High Tide

By Leandro Estupiñan.

Photos: Amauris Betancourt.

Alta Marea (High Tide), a cultural gathering, is a proposal in the Trouba House in Holguín city headed by troubadour Fernando Cabreja. It is already 10 year old and started off in Moa. When Cabreja and his family decided to settle down in Holguín, they did not only take the color and the memory of their city as well as the mania of the trouba and the compromise to promote cultural highlights through radio programs along with, , but also brought down on their shoulders some significant projects they had created.

In his 25 years of artistic life, Cabreja has won respect over so much for his compositions as for his work as an unrelenting cultural promoter. He has kept alive the Trouba Viva Meeting against all odds. And still now, this space, forged to promote trouba and troubadours from all over the country, goes on in Moa. His commitment to Moa ties him up to keep it on.

Alta Marea, on the other hand, definitely made it to Holguín. It is linked to his passion for literature and poetry, and for local writers. That half-way sickly devotion took him to found a space thought to join friends, to fuse poem and song. Alta Marea is named after the title of one of his songs, included in the recently Como una luna en pie (Like a standing moon) CD.

Still in Moa, he was able to invite guests like poets Alex Pausides and Vladimir Zamora. Now, inviting guests is not a problem because he benefits from living in a provincial capital city.

The gathering is on Thursdays, at the dying afternoon as Sindo Garay would say. The last guests have been writers Rolando Bellido, Lourdes González and Delfín Prats. The environment is pleasant. And it would be better if fans could put apart routine and meet there enthusiastically to have a ball for a while listening to Life trouba music and true poetry.Sponsored by ARTEX (a Cuban art promoting institution), and the Book Provincial Center, the gathering was inaugurated in Holguin last October 2, with guest poet José Luis Serrano.

Poet Jose Luis Serrano.

Cabreja was then already anxiously expecting the results of his concert at the Pablo de la Toerriente Brau Cultural Center, in Havana. It was done in the famous A guitarra limpia cultural gathering, which was meant then for a CD recording.

The CD was launched last November 22 in a fortunate moment for any troubadour: in a concert by Silvio Rodríguez. Thus, next to one of his teachers and in the place where he was given a hand to make his work known, Cabreja launched his 13-track CD.

The classics of his work are there, compiled as a symbol to his honest creative work, to his sensibility, to his worries, and to his vocation as a cultural promoter, because he had invited singing guests such as Ivette Rodríguez, from Baguano municipality and Edelis Loyola, his wife. She confessed that Cabreja had courted her without empty speeches. And so it seems to be the troubadour: An enemy to schemes or, as one of his songs reads: A prisoner to illusion.

Photo Contest Awards around the New Trouba Music

The photo contest jury members around the New Trouba Music (Homage to El Plátano, allias from a a recently dead photographer who devouted part of his live to photographing trouba singers), integrated by photography director Raúl Rodríguez and the photographers Julio Larramendi and Alain Gutiérrez, after checking 23 participants's works, wishes to subscribe, first of all, the quality of the images as a serious approach to the photographic memory of Cuban Trouba Movement perceived by various photographers.

Troubador Silvio Rodriguez attended the photo exhibit.

The jury wishes to acknowledge this contest is an evidence of the efforts accomplished by the Pablo de la Torriente Brau Cultural Center to encourage and to spread out the artist's works from all generations and trends in the New Cuban Trouba. The photo contest shows too, the assortment and quality in the Island’s photographic world, and fosters involvement and historic documentation of concerts, gatherings and other types of events where Cuban troubadours play a starring role.

Cuban movie actor Jorge Perugorría.

The jury agreed unanimously, granting the following rewards, mentions and acknowledgment:

First: Picking up out of all sent photos those depicting the spirit of the Trouba Movement in an attractive and original way to be exhibited (jury selection). Such a decision favored the following photographers:

Joseph Ignacio Vázquez López

Yordanka Caridad Almaguer Delgado

Enrrique Smith Soto

Carolina Vilches Monzón
Alejandro Bueno García

Ricardo Rodriguez.

Jose Meriño.

Second: Granting mentions to the following photographers, due to the aesthetic and moral values as well as the treatment of the contest theme:

Amauris Betancourt Gómez

J. Gonzalo Vidal A.

George Daniel Villa Hernández
Third: Granting the three following awards according to the contest's bases:

Because he rescues and he keeps alive the memory of a generation and of a musical movement in a unpublished image, the third award is granted to:

Joseph Michael Carassou Morales
Because he gets across and is able to sum up in a single image the troubadour's passions and his greatness, the second award is granted to:

Kaloian Santos Cabrera.

Because of the subtle remark and simplicity of the image and the excellent general plane to suggest a message, the first Prize is granted to:

Richard Pérez de la Rionda