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Vol. 73/No. 41      October 26, 2009

 
U.S. arts figures promote
Cuba cultural exchange
(feature article)
 
BY PAUL PEDERSON  
WASHINGTON—Viengsay Valdés danced with the Washington Ballet October 14.

The prima ballerina of the Ballet Nacional of Cuba is the first performing artist from that Caribbean island that the U.S. State Department has allowed to enter the country since 2003. She was a special guest at a roundtable discussion here September 27 on efforts to expand cultural exchanges between the two countries and work to end the U.S. ban on travel to Cuba.

“This event is part of a celebration of cultural exchange between the United States and Cuba,” Jorge Bolaños, Cuba’s top diplomat in the United States, told the audience of 75 participants in the discussion at Washington’s Gala Hispanic Theatre.

“The U.S.-Cuba Cultural Exchange was initiated in 2005,” Bolaños said, introducing the organization that helped put together the panel.

The Cuban Interests Section is hosting a month of cultural programs, including film showings, dance lessons, art exhibitions, and performances that end October 30. Because Cuba is denied normal diplomatic relations with the United States, the interests section functions as a substitute for an embassy. Washington also has an interests section in Havana.

“Before 2004 there were over 300 U.S. colleges with licenses for student travel to Cuba, today there are 20. Some 3,000 students visited Cuba yearly, now only 300 do,” Professor Philip Brenner of American University told the audience. Brenner said it is a lie that the reason for restricting academic travel to Cuba has to do with keeping U.S. currency out of Cuba.

“There are 2.3 million tourists that travel to Cuba each year. Ten thousand students do not affect that tourism income,” Brenner said. “This is about knowledge. The students brought back information and enthusiasm about what is happening in Cuba.”

Two of the panelists, actor and producer Danny Glover and Eduardo Diaz, executive director of the Smithsonian Latino Center, described the impact the Cuban Revolution made on their political lives as activists in the struggle for Black and Chicano rights.

Septime Webre, artistic director of the Washington Ballet, brought the ballet company—an entourage of 150 people—to Cuba in 2000. It was the first U.S. ballet company to visit the island since 1960. Webre, who is Cuban American, said, “It didn’t escape us that we were contributing to the body politic.”

Hugo Medrano, artistic director of the Gala Hispanic Theatre, which produces performances in both Spanish and English, said the theater has reached out to Cuba since its founding in 1976. In 1998 the theater brought the original cast of the award-winning Cuban film Strawberries and Chocolate to present the stage play version.

“I look forward to the day when our kids can spend six months studying in Cuba,” said Peggy Cooper Cafritz, cofounder of the Duke Ellington School for the Arts, a Washington, D.C., arts high school.

The panel was moderated by James Early, director of the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage at the Smithsonian Institution. Other speakers included Curtis White, president of Allied Communications, a company working to establish telecommunications links with Cuba; and Mavis Anderson of the Latin America Working Group, which lobbies to pass legislation easing travel restrictions. In her remarks, Anderson noted that the president does not have the authority to end the travel ban.

“The Obama administration just this week denied Carlos Alzugaray, a Cuban professor who has lectured many times in the United States, a visa,” Professor Brenner noted after Anderson spoke. “President Obama can change that. He has the power to grant or deny visas.”

“We encouraged our students to come to the program so they could better understand Cuba,” said Professor Tamera Izlar, who brought a half dozen theater students to hear the panelists. She is from the theater department of Howard University

“We came to get a better feel for Cuba,” Howard student Tyree Young told the Militant. “I’m glad we did.”
 
 
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U.S. arts figures promote Cuba cultural exchange
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