Havana
A port of call for conquistadors and merchants, patron of army men and sailors out on their quest for the West Indies, or just the key to the New World, Havana's edge lied in its enviable geographical location to harbor travelers who decided to stay on the island or return to their country with a feeling of having landed on the Promised Land. Nearly five centuries after its foundation, the former village of San Cristobal de La Habana brags about being an excellent hostess for all those foreigners interested in learning about its good things. Keeper of the country's main cultural values, the island nation's capital invites travelers to unearth its history and culture.
Plodding around the foundational plaza is no doubt an unmatchable prelude to scour a diverse and one-of-a-kind city whose outstanding scenery is marked by a cultural life as plentiful as its own architecture. This burg's spirituality teeming with magic legends and powerful ingrained traditions is nourished by an eclectic blend that cries louder with each passing day for an identity to call its own.
Blessed with a prestigious musical tradition, Havana stars an everlasting concert in which an assortment of rhythms and harmonies comes together. Such old-timed buildings as the Lesser Basilica of San Francisco of Assisi have let the spirit of concert music roam freely around every corner. Also housing the Museum of Sacred Arts, the hall has witnessed choir and chamber music performances, especially by the Camerata Romeu.
The salvation of the ancient musical arts has found an exclusive enclave in the church of San Francisco de Paula. Serving as a permanent exhibit of Cuba's contemporary fine arts, this peculiar spot is the headquarters of celebrated Ars Longa, a musical group that has managed to breathe some life into the island nation's religious music. Now saved and enriched, these scores sound louder and louder with each presentation and every edition of the Esteban Salas Ancient Music Festival, an event attended by some of the world's top performers in the genre.
Walking on to El Vedado area, a magnificent building is the undisputed coliseum of Cuban music. After getting a new lease on life –both constructively and spiritually- the Amadeo Roldan Auditorium Theater is home to the National Symphonic Orchestra and puts its halls in the hands of superb soloists and bands both from the turf and overseas.
Pop music on the island stands out for genuineness and variety. Such beats as son, cha-cha-cha, rumba and even a widespread dance known locally as casino reach out for the stars in all their festivals. A phenom called Buena Vista Social Club, whose songs and lyrics have spread around the globe like a prairie wildfire, find permanent shelter in Havana's nightlife. Members of the Cuba's New Troubadour Movement have blazed a trail of their own in national music. Through events devoted to jazz, rock and hip-hop music, a new breed of graduates from local art schools shows off the tremendous scope and outreach of Cuban music.
Seasoned with assorted ingredients, the melting pot of cultures making up the Cuban national identity got a considerable chunk of expressions from the African continent. Singing and dancing used to evoke the Orishas (Yoruba deities) are heard in different places around town to highlight their unquestionable presence within the population. Places like the Hamel Alley, the Yoruba Society and the House of Africa discourage phony folkloric dancing and invite visitors to share the real McCoy of Cuban roots.
With a multitude of styles and theoretical concepts, the strength of dancing invades the city. The Havana Grand Theater glitters like gold with the grace and elegance of the Cuban Ballet Company. With over 50 years of experience under its belt, the company –led by prima ballerina assoluta Alicia Alonso- shakes off the city with every season, though the splendorous climax comes with the Havana International Ballet Festival. Contemporary language makes dancing flow among Cuban ballet companies that do their very best on stage and share their styles in the Days of Dancing. Aloof from traditional presentations, top dancers and choreographers take part in the Old Havana event. A city in motion is their great pretext to give free rein to gorgeous performances in narrow streets, steep staircases, around a water-spurting fountain or perhaps in the standstill attitude of any square.
Visitors can also take a firsthand look at the development of Cuba's performing arts, whose pinnacle moment comes around every year during the international theatrical festival. That sort of event has nudged the country out of its maritime boundaries and given it a chance to travel to other world stages to learn about their myths and legends.
A fledgling artistic movement now making the rounds on the island nation is street art, especially in Havana, where troves of giants stop people on the streets and squares with their singing and chanting.
In early December, the city of Havana becomes amazingly seductive and snaring. A big-screen festival comes around every year with cans of box-office blockbusters made in Latin America. The event is no other than the International New Latin America Cinema Festival.
Poetry and a number of artistic manifestations find spiritual union in the biennial events of fine arts. Contemporary trends and bold proposals invade exhibition halls, sacred habitations, streets and entire neighborhoods. Based on daily experience, this makeshift laboratory gathers critics, collectors and artists from Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Europe and America who absorb the participation of the communities. Beyond the boundaries of the Biennial, the whole city begets and embraces the sign of creation to become an immense urban gallery. Artists' inspiration splays the sensitive souls of beauty and authenticity in an assortment and shapes and colors. In addition to all that, auctions and exhibit-sales anoint Havana as a real shrine of the arts.
The recently restored National Museum is the one plaza that takes Cuba's fine arts to their ultimate level, rendered in the trendiest museological language there is. In this must-see location, the fine arts are born again in the heart of the old village to guarantee a close encounter with the island nation's valuable artistic legacy of universal-stature works and pieces.
The former fortress of San Carlos de la Cabaña is the proud hostess of the city's book fairs. Labeled as one of today's most important cultural gatherings, this event includes presentations and book sales from both local and foreign authors and publishers.
As part of the huge cultural choices visitors have when coming to Havana, learning about the country's heritage is really something to talk about. Marked by a baroque diversity hard to find elsewhere in the western hemisphere –especially in terms of columns and petty pillars- Havana preserves its traditionalism and modernism at one fell swoop.
The old part of town features buildings of superb architectural value, a privileged array of plazas and squares, and a mighty defensive system that combine all to make up the most amazing historic urban core of the entire Caribbean Basin and the Americas.
Rescued from the claws of time impairment, palaces, fortresses, churches, streets and squares attempt to revive their original ambiences through a comprehensive restoration process. However, new building projects have not stripped the Cuban capital of the enchantment that stained roofs, holes in the rocks and reddish rustiness of gates have to offer.
Each and every detail reveals the reminiscences of a city that refuses to be forgotten. In this patrimonial environment, history and traditions –enriched in museums and cultural centers- coexist in perfect harmony. The former Palace of the Captain-Generals –now the City Museum- showcases priceless testimonies of our cultural heritage. The historic memory will be forever saved in a number of institutions that insist to remind us of figures and characters from the past.
Jose Marti's Birthplace House treasures Cuba's largest collection of objects and artifacts related to the life and work of the National Apostle, a museum excellently complemented with the Jose Marti Memorial at the Revolution Square. Arts and traditions find shelter in the Museum of Colonial Art, the House of Obra Pia, and the Museum of Tobacco and Cigars, while the Vedado area glows through the magnificent pieces on display at the Napoleonic and Decorative Arts museums, only to name but a couple.
A special sightseeing spot is no doubt the Automobile Deposit, whose collections comprise the finest cultural and state-of-the-art cars that rolled up and down the streets of Havana since the early 20th century, all of them excellently preserved. An underground city comes up to the surface thanks to researchers and curators of the Archeological Cabinet and Museum of the City Historian's Office, who have shed light on the life forms of yesteryear.
Other museums foster the development of culture and history from several countries, like the Benito Juarez House, the Arabic House, the Simon Bolivar House and the Guayasamin Foundation. If learning about the Cuban people's struggles is what the visitor really wants, there's no better place than the Museum of the Revolution to take a closer look at Granma, the yacht that brought the last breed of freedom fighters to Cuban coasts in 1956. The museum features similarly important objects that spin quite a yarn about the birth and evolution of our homeland.
Galleries of memories, spaces to extol the arts and culture, and an architectural revelation, Havana declines to be looked up at merely as a tourist attraction, but rather as a living, bustling burg. Way beyond this incredible array of offers, trekkers interested in knowing what Cuba's real culture is actually like, will have to saunter into huge colonial houses, modern buildings, jam-packed boroughs and even a few slums to ferret out the true value of Havana's spirit, breath, people…
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