Cuba is living its culture
Spanish, African elements, the great European currents, the American sensibility, both the Latin and the other one, are tributaries of the Cuban culture, a phenomenon characterized by its diversity and wealth. Writers and artists have a broad and permanent audience in the island. Cinemas are crowded with the exhibitions of each Cuban film. Symphonic music and ballet daily witness an increasing number of fans. Cuba is more and more a country of books and readers. Museums, art galleries, theaters and cultural houses are live spaces attended by connoisseurs to meet their likes and people who attend the performances out of curiosity...
The National Opera and other cult shows are presented every year in the mountains and in impenetrable spots of the Cuban geography and in far-away towns and hamlets. Community cultural projects want to improve and channel the taste of the audience. Though much remains to be done, to improve the spiritual life of the sugar and livestock community dwellers, thanks to the design and implementation of comprehensive programs jointly implemented by the ministries of sugar, agriculture and culture and their institutional system.
At present, the island features 250 museums, 55 theaters, 354 libraries, 123 art galleries, 350 book stores and 315 cultural houses. The cultural work is extended all over the nation and though in some provinces is wider and lucid than others, they all offer an option.
On the other hand, the work carried out by Cuban creators attracts more and more the interest of other latitudes' audience.
Cuban plastic art lives now one of the best moments. Writers conquest and consolidate spaces never before attained. There is a whole boom in music. The artistic teaching system which encompasses from the elementary level to the higher and post-graduate level, amaze everyone, ordinary people and scholars. Events as the Biennial of Havana, dedicated to plastic arts, book and craftsmanship fairs, music, ballet and cinema festivals and the Casa de las Americas literary contest, gain, among others, international recognition and participation.
The International School of Cinema, Television and Video based in Havana, has been turned into a true school of three worlds.
There is no boom nor fashion on this. It is the result of long years of general education and of artistic teaching, of discipline and work, of a seek-and-find method. A movement that has been shaping for a long time and was finally established.
The Most Important Fact
The most important cultural event that took place in Cuba was the very Revolution. The triumph of the freedom fighting on January 1, 1959 which opens up all the possibilities of the Cuban culture and the creators were able to widely perform its vocation as never before.
One of the main initial concerns of the revolutionary government was that of raising the educational level of the population. In a country of barely six million inhabitants, 700,000 illiterates were then registered. Only 15,000 youngsters studied university studies.
In the very year 1959, 10,000 new classrooms of elementary schools were found all over the national territory and the largest military installations were turned into school cities
The Illiteracy Campaign was implemented in 1961, eradicating illiteracy in few months.
That campaign whose results were described by UNESCO in that moment as "a difficult conquest attained out of work," was the initial step. Teaching was nationalized in 1961 and its free character was announced. This gave many opportunities to all the sectors of the country. At present, every child and adolescent has teachers and schools.
Education in Cuba is free from kindergarten to university and is compulsory until the ninth grade.
One cannot speak nor understand the cultural phenomenon of the island if this information is not known and if the current artistic teaching system is not taken into consideration: it has a true national approach and ensures that nor even a single talent is lost.
The National School of Art opened its doors in 1962. Four decades after, the many international awards granted to its students and graduates back the Cuban artistic teaching system which features 46 schools all over the island.
The Higher Art Institute founded in 1976 is the colophon of this project. Outstanding cultural personalities are teaching in this institution, representatives of the most advanced trends and lines of thinking, both in the pedagogic field as well as in that of creation. Significant cultural names have taught in its classrooms, in addition to young artists coming from some 15 countries that studied there their university education and were linked to many artistic projects of the institutional system of the Cuban culture.
The Art Throughout the World
Cuban plastic artists carry their art throughout the world. It is exhibited in the main museums and galleries; their works appear in important auctions, gain coveted awards and are the focus of attention of the critic. A look at the theater is an evidence of the technical training of the teams and their notable theoretical substrate which include, undoubtedly, talents that have been trained in the art schools. The borders between the old and new theater seem to be abolished or, at least, weakened in the Cuban stage. There are works, debuts, good playwrights, bright performances and audiences. Some two million persons attend theater and dance performances in the island every year.
Old and young values share in music the same success. Some venerable old folks don't want to retire and cast their spell with their wonderful voice and rhythm. Highly-skilled musicians are members of most of the orchestras and are periodically renovated so as to continue their aesthetic searches so as to be maintained in the audience's preference.
Likewise there are many outstanding individual figures. The so-called cult music, has a long tradition in Cuba and prestigious exponents.
In the 20th century, the Cuban popular music inundated the world. Habaneras influenced and fed jazz, merengue and tango. The rumba injected the samba and Caribbean rhythms and the bolero became the Latin-American song. Son, cha-cha-cha and mambo encouraged everyone to dance. Musicologist Radamés Giro has stated that Cuba is a greenhouse of Latin jazz and of Caribbean salsa, and Cuban cells are present all over the music, even in the latest rock trends is found.
Cuba will continue being a "great spring of music." Its deposit of rhythms, timbre ranges, musical tunes and styles ensure its own future".
Works by plastic arts can be purchased in the galleries of the Fondo Cubano de Bienes Culturales (Cuban Fund of Cultural Assets) and in other sites. ARTEX S.A. houses which offer a wide range of cultural products and souvenirs, sell a broad variety of cassettes, CDs with the best of the Cuban music of yesterday and today. ARTEX has some 250 establishments in the island.
Creativity Expands
A mural of Santiago streets Cuban art and literature are an expression of a wide range of significant production, proposing a look which is complex and not complacent. Several generations of artists and writers work today with very enlightening aesthetic and ideological proposals. Art and literature encompass all the domains of fact and fiction, stated poet Carlos Martí, president of the Union of Writers and Artists. An art and literature that focus the social phenomena from many standpoints and that give rise to experiment, abstraction and reflection of the human being...
Cuba lives a boom of cultural creativity and, over the time, is the recipient of this creativity.
The aim is now to promote mass culture. The creators' opinions and the popular community dimension of culture find a consistent articulation so as to offer the people the best and most genuine of the Cuban and universal creation, thus turning it into an active receptor, participant and creative.
When alluding to mass promotion, we are not referring to a populist concept nor the aim of disseminating the sub products that in general are found in the entertaining industry, but rather to prepare the population to understand the most complex and elaborated messages.
Those who approach cultural institutions can see this, admire the monuments, visit the museums, attend theaters, art galleries and musical and dance performances, participate in popular parties, establish a dialogue with the artists, chat with the Cuban people¾educated, happy, communicative, spontaneous...
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