The 32nd edition of the Theatrical Crusade paid tribute to the puppeteer Eldys Cuba, for his 35 years of work.The will to preserve culture as a precious asset of the people, even in the midst of the difficult circumstances that the country is going through, prevailed in the year just concluded, a period of important results at the national level both for artists and their works in the easternmost of the territories.
2022 was marked by transcendental recognitions for the people of Guantanamo, highlight the delivery of the Maestro de Juventudes Award to the saxophonist, composer and arranger, specialist in choral music Conrad Monier Ribeauxalmost at the end of the year.
No less transcendental was learning that Annalie López Caballero had won the Ignacio Villa Musical Creation Scholarship; Yasser Domínguez Oquendo, Guantanamo principal dancer in the company Acosta Danceobtained the Ramiro Guerra, from Contemporary dance, and Fermín Francel Figueredo excelled in Male Performance with the Llauradó Award, for the play Pan para la fe. All national.
Guantanamo He also managed to get other awards: the writer Eldys Baratute won the Ismaelillo Award, which is awarded by the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (Uneac), in the section dedicated to children’s and youth literature; the Integral Mountain Artistic Ensemble was the best and most awarded in the national competition of this format in Granma, and the historian Wilfredo Campos received the Boti Award for research.
Our people were also among the winners of the Cubadisco International Music Fair: the interpreter Virginia Guantanamera, resident in Spain, excelled in the Tropical and Varied Music section, with the phonogram Process; in the Singles category she won the theme The strength of a countryfrom Good faiththe Guantanamo Changuiamong other edges, and the teacher Elito Revé received one of the Honor Awards of the contest.
In the performing arts, the theater artists Ury Rodríguez and Geordany Carcasés deserved the La Selva Oscura Award, Honorary and for the Work of the Year 2021, awarded by the Provincial Council of that specialty.
There were other laurels along the way: the delivery in the Solemn Session of the Municipal Assembly of People’s Power in Guantanamo from the La Fama statuette, symbol of the city, to the CMKS Radio Station; to the actor and narrator Urcinio Rodríguez Urgellés, and the writer Eldys Baratute, and the Shield of the Town to Adelaida Gómez Blanco, manager of the community project El Patio de Adela y el Caverchelo.comb. Loma del Chivo and the Pedro Agustín Pérez House Museum.
All the gifts were well deserved and welcomed, as they demonstrate the strength of culture as a precious asset of our eastern people.
The sixth edition of the Chocolate con Café Festival became one of the best proposals of the year.
Premieres and events to signify
2022 was also marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, and although the vaccines contributed to moving towards face-to-face attendance, most of the events and works that were developed came with the imprint left by the disease, as new tools to resist and create.
The result of this effort were the works one for allfrom the Corpus Puppets ensemble, and The order of the factorsfrom Teatro de la Totalidad, and also from the latter group the piece cemi, the most recent musical that reflects on gender violence, based on an interesting performance from the stage of the Teatro Guiñol.
The return to the mountains with a mask and not a few limitations, of the Guantánamo-Baracoa Theater Crusade, from January 28 to March 3, was another indication of the commitment of Guantanamo art to the public. This time there were only two invited groups: To tell you better and El Arca, from Havana, with three shows, and as a distinctive gift, copies of the book by Isabel Cristina López Hamze, were delivered to the libraries of the six municipalities. I’m going to Baracoa: a Theatrical Crusade.
In Guantanamo Culture Week took place in February, with various proposals, among them, the Popular Art Fair on the boulevard of the city of Guantánamo and the presentation of titles of Union Editions. The Book Fair arrived shortly after, to honor the writers Luis Figueras, Rissell Parra and Sobidelia Iglesias, for their commendable contributions to Guantanamo literature and bring the critic Omar Valiño, one of the leading men in specialized criticism.
An expected moment was the return of the Regino Eladio Boti Conference on Literature and Plastic Arts, in its 44th edition, where painting Runwayby Ernesto Cuesta, stood out in the visual arts section, and shamanic visions, by the artist Mildo Matos, received a mention. The appointment had another unique attraction: the return to Guaso of the Canadian artist Alan Flint with his new exhibition: The technology of inclusioncomposed of 85 pieces of engraving of various materials that had been touring the country.
Novelty in June turned out lthe Elfriede Mahler Conference in three times, convened by the company free dance for the 105th anniversary of the birth of the founding teacher of the professional dance movement in Guantanamo. A special gift to Elfriede were the premieres Bernarda’s children Y parasomniaboth creations of the young director Elio Oreste Reyna.
The celebration of the 35 years of Uneac in Guantanamo and the 45 of the Piedras Zoo They also marked 2022, in which the CMKS station also reached its 85th anniversary, the Venceremos newspaper turned 60 and the Solvisión telecentre celebrated its 35th anniversary, with the merit of winning the Innovation Award from the National Press Festival for the second time.
The Piedras de Guantánamo Zoo, on December 21, 2022, turned 45 years old.
In these 365 days that we left behind, Guantanamo also received the 46th edition of the Political Song Day, dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the New Trova and the gender approach in the Cuban trova. With more than twenty guests, concerts, trova and poetry expeditions, theoretical spaces, as well as plastic arts exhibitions, the festivity turned the province into the capital of intelligent verse, just months before knowing the declaration of the trova as Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Nation.
New alliances were created in the year: the anthology of stories for children almond shootsof young Cuban writers, compiled by the prominent Guantanamo writer Eldys Baratute Benavides, was brought to audiovisual with the cooperation of the Ediciones La Luz Seal and the Anima Studiosof Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industryfrom Holguin.
Likewise, the Chocolate with Coffee Festivalupon returning to our territory, not only attracted international artists such as the Italian band emilia rossa and the Spanish copla singer Pilar Boyerosbut even made the province the headquarters of the first Biocuba International Business and Business Fair, which aims to create from this area the most important commercial exchange of Biorganic products in Cuba and the Caribbean.
In 2022 there were Guantanamera Party, we young creators returned to Cine Andante with multiple audiovisual proposals for communities in transformation; the Provincial Film Center premiered several films; the Book continued to explore new proposals and promotion scenarios, and the provincial library changed its name, now it adopts that of Regino Eladio Botiin recognition of the prominent intellectual of this terroir.
All the demonstrations had their space, and that is worth noting because from each of their creative niches our groups, artists, promoters, researchers and writers contributed and contribute to the spirituality of the Guantanamo people and to the cultural progress of the nation.