Cultural thaw lets
talented performers
generate some heat.

The Cuban rumba and dance troupe Los Munequitos de Matanzas hasn’t performed in New York in nearly a decade. Danza Contemporanea de Cuba, which mixes Afro-Caribbean dance and classical European ballet and was founded in 1959, has never been to the United States. Neither have the socially conscious photographers Adonis Flores and Cirenaica Moreira.

All those and more than two dozen other artists will take part in a wideranging festival of Cuban arts March 31 to June 16 in locations around New York . With nearly every form and style of Cuban arts and culture represented, the festival, called “¡Si Cuba!,” is scheduled to run in settings as diverse as Carnegie Hall and the outdoor Big Screen Project; 14 city arts organizations will be taking part. Music, film, dance, painting, theater, photography and literature are included, and dozens of performers and artists are expected to come from Cuba .

“We felt that this was the right time to do this, and New York the right place,” said Karen Brooks Hopkins, president of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, which is the driving force behind the festival and will host many of the events. “There’s an optimism in the air about freeing up more interactions.”

With both the Obama administration and the dictatorship of Fidel and Raul Castro showing interest in reducing longstanding tensions between the two countries, the event obviously has political connotations too. “Both governments have clearly identified the cultural space as a safe space for them to pursue connections between the two countries, so this fits very well into that context,” said Julia E. Sweig, author of “Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know” and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“When we were closed, and it was hard for Cuban artists to travel to the U.S., they were still producing and having their shows,” said Ben Rodriguez-Cubenas, a Cuban-American who is chairman of the Cuban Artists Fund, which is devoted to cultural exchanges. “Cuba has always had a vibrant arts scene, and Americans are now rediscovering that.”

The Cuban artists participating in the festival include familiar names, like the National Ballet of Cuba, led by the 90-year-old Alicia Alonso. But there are also lesser-known groups like El Ballet Folklorico Cutumba and Danza Contemporanea de Cuba, performing in May.

Several Cuban-American artists have been invited to participate in the festival, among them Cristina Garcia, the author of “Dreaming in Cuban.”

She said that will create opportunities for artists on both sides of the Straits of Florida to get to know one another. “I plan to stay in New York for three or four weeks to partake of these riches, which are not the kind of thing you normally have any real access to,” she said. “And I think it’s wonderfully advantageous for them too. Not only are they desperate for connections and influences and eager to see what is happening in all the different realms of the art world here, I also think they want to strut their stuff. I’m sure they are thinking this will lead to other invitations and travel, if things go well.”


By LARRY ROHTER