CUBA CULTURE SECTION - Havana Journal
Recent News and Information
By Steven Zeitchik | Hollywood Reporter
A trio of prominent producers are teaming up for “Havana Nocturne,” a story of gangsters in 1950’s Cuba based on T.J. English’s New York Times bestseller.
Eric Eisner (“Hamlet 2”), Gil Adler (“Superman Returns”), and Shane McCarthy (untitled Robert Cooley mob drama at Paramount) are attached as producers on the project. Eisner’s L+E banner will produce and finance development, while Adler will produce via his Gilbert Adler Prods.
“Nocturne” centers on a group of mainly American gangsters in Batista’s Cuba, particularly Meyer Lansky, who run the freewheeling country’s…
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Rob Sequin | Havana Journal
Sculpture by Cuban ceramic artist Osmany Betancourt
At the Fuller Craft Museum on Oak Street in Brockton Massachusetts, you can see a Cuban ceramic art exhibition called “Beyond the Embargo: Cuban and American Ceramics” until October 18.
Curated by Catherine Merrill, this exhibition highlights works in clay from a group of prominent Cuban and American artists who, in spite of the continued U.S. Embargo against Cuba, have continued to work and exhibit together in both Cuba and the United States. This collaborative…
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Rob Sequin | Havana Journal
The promoters of these Cuban musicians sent me a CD. From the moment I started to play it I knew this was something powerful.
Click on the image above to hear a sample of Madera Limpia’s music.
Madera Limpia captures the soul and power of the youth movement in Cuba and specifically in Eastern Cuba. The band is from Guantanamo, a very rural area of Cuba.
The name is known for having the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay but that really has no effect on the people…
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By Alexis Rojas Aguilera | Ahora.cu
Work on constructing the fourth wind farm in Cuba, is being carried out in Punta Rasa, about three kilometres from the coastal city of Gibara, in Holguin.
Luis San Juan, director of the National Group for Renewable Energy, told AIN that six Golwind S-50 machines with Chinese technology will be installed, which will have a capacity of 4.5 megawatts.
When the wind farm is completed, the potential of renewable energy should reach 9.6 megawatts which will be the biggest electricity generator in Cuba.
He explained that the necessary equipment for the construction of the…
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By Walker Simon | Reuters
An untitled painting by Cuban born artist Wifredo Lam. AFP PHOTO
The Cuban art market is showing signs of vitality as the economic recession weakens demand for works from elsewhere in Latin America, collectors said.
A Cuban painting was the top seller in May’s Latin American art auctions in New York. American collectors of Asian art are now snapping up Cuban contemporary works and Cuban art galleries are also springing up.
For years late Cuban artists of the 20th century, like surrealist Wifredo Lam, have pierced the $1 million…
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By: Stephanie Simon | NY1.com
Some Cuban arts experts are welcoming the changing political climate and its evolving effect on the art market. NY1’s Stephanie SImon filed the following report.
Alberto Magnan owns an art gallery in Chelsea, but he’s never far from his homeland of Cuba. In March, Alberto helped organize a historic exhibit of Chelsea artists in Havana called “Chelsea Visits Havana.” Magnan told NY1 about this dream three years ago, but this year he was able to make it a reality. He believes a change in the White House helped.
“I felt that there was a lot…
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Marina Sitrin | UpsideDownWorld.org
We are on a main city block early Saturday morning. People gathering are high spirited, almost giddy. As people begin to form a line I exhale deeply, imagining it is just one of many lines that are the Cuban reality. This line, however, is different. This line begins to shift, snake, jump and dance. This is a conga line. There are hundreds of us, perhaps even a thousand, and we are dancing in a conga line down one of the most central streets in Havana. And we are not just some random group of people, we…
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By Meaghan Agnew | Boston Globe
Michelle Wojcik knows what it is to be an island. As the owner of Galeria Cubana, the only gallery in New England to deal exclusively in contemporary Cuban art, Wojcik spends her days and nights managing every particular of her business, from hanging artwork to changing light bulbs.
The Lowell native has long been fascinated by Cuba. While studying for her master’s degree in applied anthropology at American University, Wojcik got involved in a project with the Instituto Superior de Relaciones Internacionales in Miramar. She deepened her ties to the island nation while an…
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Herald Tribune
Tapping into what seems like thawing relations between the United States and Cuba, the Sarasota Yacht Club is hosting a forum Thursday to discuss steps to rebuild nautical ties between the two nations.
The club has applied with the federal government for permission to compete in a sailing regatta off Cuba’s coast — something the club last did 15 years ago, before the U.S. prohibited virtually all travel to the island nation.
At Thursday’s forum, Timothy F. Ashby, an attorney with Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP in Miami and national expert on Cuban-American trade issues, is scheduled to…
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Canada East
President Raul Castro’s daughter Mariela led hundreds of Cuban gays in a street dance Saturday to draw attention to gay rights on the island.
Participants formed a carnival-style conga line around two city blocks to beat the of drums, accompanied by costumed stilt-walkers.
Events also included educational panels and presentations for books, magazines and CDs about gay rights and sexual diversity.
Attending the program’s opening, National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon said that Cuba has advanced in recent years in the area of gay rights.
The communist government discriminated against homosexuals - even sending some to work camps -…
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