THE NATIONAL PSYCHE
LIFESTYLE
ECONOMY
POPULATION
SPORT
MULTICULTURALISM
MEDIA
RELIGION
ARTS
Funny, gracious, generous, tactile and slow to anger, the Cuban people are the Irish of the Americas; a small nation with a big personality, and plenty of rum-fueled backs-to-the-wall boisterousness to go with it. Take the time to get to know them on their own turf and you’re halfway to understanding what this most confounding and contradictory of Caribbean countries is all about.
Survivors by nature and necessity, Cubans have long displayed an almost inexhaustible ability to bend the rules and ‘work things out’ when it matters. In a country where so much is impossible, anything becomes possible, and from the backstreets of Baracoa to the hedonistic heights of Havana nobody’s shy about ‘giving it a go.’
The two most overused verbs in the national phrasebook are conseguir (to get, manage) and resolver (to resolve, work out), and Cubans are experts at doing both. Their intuitive ability to bend the rules and make something out of nothing is borne out of economic necessity. In a small nation bucking modern sociopolitical realities, where monthly salaries top out at around the equivalent of US$25, survival can often mean getting innovative as a means of supplementing personal income. Cruise the crumbling streets of Centro Habana and you’ll see people conseguir-ing and resolver-ing wherever you go. There’s the casa particular owner offering guided tours using his car as a taxi, or the lady selling lobsters in defiance of government regulations. Other schemes may be ill-gotten or garnered through trickery, such as the compañero (comrade) who pockets the odd blemished cigar from the day job to sell to unsuspecting Canadians. Old Cuba hands know one of the most popular ways to make extra cash is working with (or over) tourists.
In Cuba, hard currency (ie Convertible pesos) rules, primarily because it is the only way of procuring the modest luxuries that make living in this austere socialist republic vaguely bearable. Paradoxically, the post-1993 double economy has reinvigorated the class system the Revolution worked so hard to neutralize, and it’s no longer rare to see Cubans with access to Convertibles touting designer clothing while others hassle tourists mercilessly for bars of soap. This stark re-emergence of ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ is among the most ticklish issues facing Cuba today.
Other social traits absorbed since the Revolution are more altruistic and less divisive. In Cuba sharing is second nature and helping out your compañero with a lift, a square meal or a few Convertibles when they’re in trouble is considered a national duty. Check the way that strangers interact in queues or at transport intersections and log how your casa owner always refers you onto someone else, often on the other side of the country.
In such an egalitarian system the notion of fairness is often sacred, and although the image of Che’s New Man (an individual inspired by moral rather than financial rewards) might be looking a little worn around the edges these days, the social cohesion that characterized the lean years of the período especial (Special Period; Cuba’s economic reality post-1991) remains loosely intact. One of the most common arguments you’ll see in a Cuban street is over queue-jumping – a fracas that won’t just engage the one or two people directly involved, but half the town.
Life in Cuba is open and interactive. Come 10pm, the whole population will be sitting outside on their rocking chairs shooting the breeze over dominoes, cigars, cheap rum or the omnipresent TV sets. Home life is important here and often three generations of the same family can be found living together under one roof. Such binding ties make the complex question of the embargo all the more painful. One of the saddest effects of the US-Cuban deep freeze is the broken families. Precipitated by prejudicial immigration policies on Washington’s part and downright intransigence from the brothers Castro, many Cubans have left home in search of brighter horizons and almost everyone has a long-lost sister, cousin or aunt making it good (or not so good) overseas.
But it’s not all bad news. Meager wages have risen in recent years and new economic relations with Venezuela, China and India have taken the sting out of Cuba’s ongoing shortages. Nonetheless, the brow-creased refrain of no es fácil (it ain’t easy) is still widely heard in the streets and bars of Cuba, in response to a government which has an eerie habit of giving with one hand while taking away with the other.
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Cuban socialism dances to its own strangely off-beat rhythm. While Cubans technically own their homes, they can’t sell them for a profit, only swap them for a house of equivalent size. Though there’s no mortgage to pay, housing shortages mean three or even four generations might live under the same roof, which gets tight in a two-bedroom apartment. This also cramps budding love lives, and Cubans will tell you it’s the reason the country has one of the world’s highest divorce rates. On the flip side, a full house means there’s almost always someone to babysit, take care of you when you’re sick or do the shopping while you’re at work.
Cuban women have been liberated in the sense that they have access to education and training of any sort they desire. In fact, women make up 66% of the professional and technical workforce. But, like everywhere, a glass ceiling still exists in some fields (eg politics) and the home is still largely the woman’s responsibility, which translates to a ‘double workday’ – women go to work and then come home, to work. Thanks to specific government policies, such as one-year guaranteed maternity leave and free day care, it’s easier being a mother and a career woman in Cuba. Children are an integral part of life and kids are everywhere – the theater, church, restaurants and rock concerts. It’s refreshing that Cubans don’t drastically alter their lives once they become parents.
That women are turning to hustling to make some extra cash or attain baubles is disturbing. While some jineteras (women who attach themselves to male foreigners for monetary or material gain) are straight-up hookers, others are just getting friendly with foreigners for the perks they provide: a ride in a car, a night out in a fancy disco or a new pair of jeans. Some are after more, others nothing at all. It’s a complicated state of affairs and can be especially confusing for male travelers who get swept up in it.
Most homes don’t have computers or flat-screen TVs, infinitesimally few have internet access and disposable income is an oxymoron. All of this has a huge effect on lifestyle. What makes Cuba different from somewhere like Bolivia or Appalachia though, are the government’s heavy subsidies of every facet of life, meaning there is no mortgage, no health-care bills, no college fees and little tax. Expensive nights out cost next to nothing in Cuba where tickets for the theater, the cinema, the ballpark or a music concert are state-subsidized and considered a right of the people. Now if only there was the transport to get there. Still, with a set of dominoes or a guitar, a bottle of rum and a group of friends, who needs baseball or the ballet?
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Nearly destroyed during the economic meltdown that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the Cuban economy has defied all logic by its continued survival. Given new life with a three-pronged recovery plan in 1993 that included the legalization of the US dollar (retracted in 2004), the limited opening up of the private sector and the frenzied promotion of the tourist industry in resort areas such as Varadero and Cayo Coco, net advances have been slow but steady with much of the benefits yet to filter down to the average person on the street in Havana or Santiago. Throwing off its heavy reliance on old staples such as sugar and tobacco, Cuba’s recent economic development has spun inexorably toward Latin America in the shape of new trade agreements such as the 2004 Bolívarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) accords that have exchanged Cuban medical know-how for Venezuelan oil. Other modern economic mainstays include nickel-mining (Cuba is among the world’s largest producers) and pharmaceuticals. Along with the rest of the world, at the time of writing Cuba was significantly impacted by the 2008–09 economic downturn.
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The slave trade and the triumph of the Cuban Revolution are two of the most important factors in Cuba’s population mix. From Santería traditions to popular slang, Afro-Cuban culture is an integral part of the national identity. According to the 2002 census, Cuba’s racial breakdown is 24% mulato (mixed race), 65% white, 10% black and 1% Chinese. Aside from the obvious Spanish legacy, many of the so-called ‘white’ population are the descendants of French immigrants who arrived on the island in various waves during the early part of the 19th century. Indeed, the cities of Guantánamo, Cienfuegos and Santiago de Cuba were all either pioneered or heavily influenced by French émigrés, and much of Cuba’s coffee and sugar industry owes its development to French entrepreneurship.
The black population is also an eclectic mix. Numerous Haitians and Jamaicans came to Cuba to work in the sugar fields in the 1920s and they brought many of their customs and traditions with them. Their descendants can be found in Guantánamo and Santiago in the Oriente or places such as Venezuela in Ciego de Ávila province where Haitian voodoo liturgies are still practiced. Another important immigrant town is Baraguá in Ciego de Ávila, which is famous for its English-speaking West Indian community who still celebrate their annual ‘freedom day’ each August with a game of cricket.
The invitation to partake in free education up to university level had Cubans pouring into the cities from the countryside after the Revolution, so that today the urban population is a top-heavy 75%. In an effort to stem or reverse this trend, the government offered land incentives to urbanites during the período especial to encourage resettling in rural areas, and since May 1998 Cubans have needed official permission to relocate to Havana.
There are no official class breakdowns in Cuba, although class divisions based on income have begun to rear their ugly head since the beginning of the período especial. More refreshingly, Cuba is one of the few countries in the world where the notion of doffing your cap to someone of higher social stature is virtually nonexistent.
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Considered a right of the masses, professional sport was abolished by the government after the Revolution. Performance-wise it was the best thing the new administration could have done. Since 1959 Cuba’s Olympic medal haul has rocketed into the stratosphere. The crowning moment came in 1992 when Cuba – a country of 11 million people languishing low on the world’s rich list – brought home 14 gold medals and ended fifth on the overall medals table. It’s a testament to Cuba’s high sporting standards that their 11th-place finish in Athens in 2004 was considered something of a national failure.
Characteristically the sporting obsession starts at the top. Fidel Castro was once renowned for his baseball-hitting prowess, but what is lesser known was his personal commitment to the establishment of a widely accessible national sporting curriculum at all levels. In 1961 the National Institute of Sport, Physical Education and Recreation (Inder) founded a system of sport for the masses that eradicated discrimination and integrated children from a young age. By offering paid leisure-time to workers and dropping entrance fees to major sports events, the organization caused participation in popular sports to multiply tenfold by the 1970s and the knock-on effect to performance was tangible.
Cuban pelota (baseball) is legendary and the country is riveted during the October–March regular season, turning rabid for the play-offs in April. You’ll see passions running high in the main square of provincial capitals, where fans debate minute details of the game with lots of finger-wagging in what is known as a peña deportiva (fan club) or esquina caliente (hot corner). These are among the most opinionated venues in Cuba, and the esquina in Havana’s Parque Central (see boxed text,) is highly entertaining, especially in the postseason when funereal wreaths and offerings to orishas (Santería deities) appear for eliminated teams and those still contending. Sometimes a Cuban player is lured to the US, like José Ariel Contreras, who pitched for Pinar, but now earns millions playing for the Chicago White Sox (he formerly played for the Yankees). Most players, however, shun the big-money bait and the opportunity to play in baseball’s greatest stadiums, opting instead to continue earning the equivalent of around US$20 per month – decisions that make their athletic achievements all the more admirable.
Cuba is also a giant in amateur boxing, as indicated by champions Teófilo Stevenson, who brought home Olympic gold in 1972, 1976 and 1980, and Félix Savón, another triple medal winner, most recently in 2000. Every sizable town has an arena called sala polivalente, where big boxing events take place, while training and smaller matches happen at gyms, many of which train Olympic athletes. Travelers interested in sparring lessons or seeing a match should drop in at a gym (see individual regional chapters for information). For boxing shows, ask around at the local sala polivalente or keep an eye out for posters advertising upcoming bouts. As with all sporting events in Cuba, entrance to professional-standard (though technically amateur) shows is cheap and relatively hassle-free.
Basketball, volleyball (the national women’s team won gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games) and, to a lesser extent, football are all popular in Cuba, but dominó (always referred to in the singular) and chess, both considered sports, are national passions. Self-taught José Raúl Capablanca, touted as the greatest ever natural chess player, became World Chess Champion in 1921; you’ll see chess matches on the street and read about the masters in the sports pages. Dominó is everywhere and you’ll find quartets of old men and young bucks slugging back shots of rum and slamming down their tiles in every Cuban neighborhood. In March 2003 Havana hosted the first annual Campeonato Mundial de Dominó (World Domino Championship), with 10 countries and thousands of players participating. The finals were held in Ciudad Deportiva, where Cuba won it all. Cockfighting, while technically illegal, is still practiced widely in Cuba with clandestine shows attracting a large number of mainly male spectators who come to gamble away their hard-earned pesos.
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Despite the fact that racism was abolished by law after the Revolution, Cuba is still facing up to the difficult challenges of establishing lasting racial equality in a widely cosmopolitan and multicultural society. While there are no ghettos or gangs in Cuba’s larger cities, a quick tally of the roaming jineteros/jineteras in Vedado and Habana Vieja will reveal a far higher proportion of black participants. On the other side of the coin, over 90% of Cuban exiles are of white descent, and of the victorious rebel army that took control of the government in 1959 only a handful (Juan Almeida being the most obvious example) were of mixed heritage.
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In a country replete with writers, sages and poets, Cuba’s media is without doubt one of the Revolution’s greatest failures. The only daily national newspaper – a dour eight-page tabloid called Granma – is an insipid dose of politics, politics and yet more politics, all of which pours forth from the all-pervading, all-encompassing propaganda ministries of the Cuban Communist Party.
The silencing of the press was one of Castro’s first political acts on taking power in 1959. Challenged with the crime of speaking out against the Revolution, nearly all of Cuba’s once independent newspapers were either closed down or taken over by the state by the summer of 1960. Many freelance operators faced a similar fate. In 1965 Guillermo Cabrera Infante, one of Cuba’s most respected writers, left for an ignominious exile in London after serving as a cultural attaché in Brussels; many others followed.
Despite some relaxation of press restrictions since the heavy-handed days of the 1970s and ‘80s, Cuban journalists must still operate inside strict press laws that prohibit the use of antigovernment propaganda and ban the seemingly innocuous act of ‘insulting officials in public,’ a crime that carries a three-year jail term.
Other limitations include the prohibition of private ownership of the electronic media and a law that prohibits foreign news agencies from hiring local journalists without first going through official government channels.
Most foreign observers, both in and outside Cuba, agree that the Cuban media situation is an unmitigated disaster. Furthermore, in 2005 the New York–based Committee to Protect Journalists revealed that Cuba was one of the world’s leading jailers of journalists.
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Religion is among the most misunderstood and complex aspects of Cuban culture. Before the Revolution 85% of Cubans were nominal Roman Catholics, though only 10% attended church regularly. Protestants made up most of the remaining church-going public, though a smattering of Jews and Muslims have always practiced in Cuba and still do. When the Revolution triumphed, 140 Catholic priests were expelled for reactionary political activities and another 400 left voluntarily, while the majority of Protestants, who represented society’s poorer sector, had less to lose and stayed.
When the government declared itself Marxist-Leninist and therefore atheist, life for creyentes (literally ‘believers’) took on new difficulties. Though church services were never banned and freedom of religion never revoked, Christians were sent to Unidades Militares de Ayuda a la Producción (UMAPs; Military Production Aid Units), where it was hoped hard labor might reform their religious ways; homosexuals and vagrants were also sent to the fields to work. This was a short-lived experiment, however. More trying for believers were the hard-line Soviet days of the ’70s and ’80s, when they were prohibited from joining the Communist Party and few, if any, believers held political posts. Certain university careers, notably in the humanities, were off-limits as well.
Things have changed dramatically since then, particularly in 1992 when the constitution was revised, removing all references to the Cuban state as Marxist-Leninist and recapturing the laical nature of the government. This led to an aperture in civil and political spheres of society for religious adherents, and to other reforms (eg believers are now eligible for party membership). Since Cuban Catholicism gained the papal seal of approval with Pope John Paul II’s visit in 1998, church attendance has surged and posters welcoming him are still displayed with pride. It’s worth noting that church services have a strong youth presence. There are currently 400,000 Catholics regularly attending Mass and 300,000 Protestants from 54 denominations. Other denominations such as the Seventh Day Adventists and Pentecostals are rapidly growing in popularity.
The religious beliefs of Africans brought to Cuba as slaves were originally layered over Catholic iconography and doctrines, eventually forming new belief systems. Santería (also known as Lucumí) – a complicated mix of Catholicism and Yoruba beliefs – is the most widespread of these and is an integrated part of daily life here; you’ll see initiates dressed in white everywhere you go and many homes have altars tucked into the corners. Other hybrids include Abakuá, a secret society with ancestry in Cameroon and Nigeria, and Arará, a cross between Lucumí and Voodoo celebrated for its distinctive drumming rituals.
Santería has served as a cultural ambassador of sorts, with new museums and dance and drum performances becoming standard itinerary fare. Some take exception to this ‘folkloricization’ of the sacred – dressing all in white has now become fashionable whether you’re initiated or not, for example – and curious tourists may be taken to consultations with babalawos (priests) more interested in your money than your dilemmas.
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In contrast to some other communist countries, Cuba’s reputation as a powerhouse of art and culture is nothing short of staggering. Each provincial town, no matter how small, has a Casa de Cultura that stages everything from traditional salsa music to innovative comedy nights and, on top of this, countless other theaters, organizations and institutions bring highbrow art to the masses completely free of charge.
The quality of what’s on offer is equally amazing. The Cubans seem to have made a habit out of taking almost any artistic genre and replicating it perfectly. You’ll pick up first-class flamenco, ballet, classical music and Shakespearean theater here in the most mundane of places, not to mention Lorca plays, alternative cinema and illuminating deconstructions of novels by the likes of Márquez and Carpentier.
Several governmental organizations countrywide oversee the work of writers and artists, including the revered Casa de las Américas, the Unión de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba (Uneac; Union of Cuban Writers and Artists; see boxed text,) and its junior counterpart, Asociación Hermanos Saíz.
Although art and culture are actively encouraged in Cuban society, writers of all genres are set strict limits. Conformists (national poet Nicolás Guillén was the best example) enjoy prestige, patronage and a certain amount of artistic freedom, while dissidents (Guillermo Cabrera Infante and Herberto Padilla were two notable historical examples) face oppression, incarceration and the knowledge that their hard-won literary reputation will be quickly airbrushed out of Cuban history.
For information on Cuban music styles, check out the dedicated Music chapter Click here.
In a country strewn with icons like rice at a wedding, José Martí (1853–95) is the master. Visionary, patriot and rebel, he was also a literary giant whose collected plays, essays and poetry fill 30 volumes. Exiled for his writings before he was 20, Martí lived most of his life outside Cuba, primarily in the US. His last book of poetry, Versos Sencillos (Simple Verses), is, as the title proclaims, full of simple verses and is arguably one of his best. Though written more than a century ago, the essays collected in Nuestra América (Our America) and Los Estados Unidos (The United States) are remarkably forward-thinking, providing a basis for Latin American self-determination in the face of US hegemony. For more on Martí’s role as Cuban independence leader, see the History chapter Click here.
Like Martí, mulato Nicolás Guillén (1902–89) is considered one of Cuba’s world-class poets. Ahead of his time, he was one of the first mainstream champions of Afro-Cuban culture, writing rhythmic poems such as Sóngoro Cosongo (1931). A communist who believed in social and racial equality, Guillén lived in exile during Batista’s regime, writing Elegía a Jesús Menéndez (1951) and La Paloma de Vuelo Popular: Elegías (1958). Some of his most famous poems are available in the English collection entitled New Love Poetry: Elegy. He returned after the Revolution and cofounded Uneac (see boxed text, above). Guillén was Cuba’s national poet until his death.
Cubans are crazy for poetry, so don’t be surprised when someone starts reeling off verses by Dulce María Loynaz (1902–97), recipient of Spain’s coveted Miguel de Cervantes literary award; Eliseo Diego (1920–94), the poet’s poet, whose words give wings to the human spirit; or singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez, who is a good guitar player, but a great poet.
In literature, as in poetry, the Cuban bibliography is awe-inspiring. Novelist Alejo Carpentier (1904–80) was another exiled writer, returning after the Revolution to write El Recurso del Método (Reasons of State) and Concierto Barroco, both published in 1974. The latter is considered his masterpiece. Havana fans will want to check out his Ciudad de las Columnas (The City of Columns; 1970), which juxtaposes B&W photographs of the city’s architectural details with insightful prose.
Paradiso by José Lezama Lima (1910–76) was a ‘scandalous novel’ when it appeared in 1966 because of its erotic (homosexual) scenes. Now it’s considered a classic. Lezama was a poet and essayist who cofounded the influential magazine Orígenes in 1944.
Notable writers who left Cuba after the Revolution include playwright Reinaldo Arenas (1943–90), whose autobiography Antes que Anochezca (Before Night Falls; 1992) was made into a critically acclaimed drama for the silver screen; and Guillermo Cabrera Infante (1929–2005), whose Tres Tristes Tigres (Three Trapped Tigers; 1967) describes cultural decadence during the Batista era. Of course, Cuba’s most famous foreign writer-in-residence was Ernest Hemingway, who wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls in the Hotel Ambos Mundos in Havana Click here.
Cubans are crazy about cinema and this passion is reflected in the plethora of movie houses that exist in all but the smallest towns. Since 1959 the film industry has been run by the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (Icaic), headed by longtime film sage and former Havana University student, Alfredo Guevara. Guevara is widely recognized, along with other influential filmmakers such as Tomás Gutiérrez Alea (1928–96), as putting cutting-edge Cuban cinema on the international map. Indeed, for years cinema has led the way in cultural experimentation and innovation on the island, exploring themes such as homosexuality, misogyny and bureaucratic paranoia that are generally considered taboo in other parts of Cuban society.
Cuba’s first notable postrevolutionary movie, the Cuban-Soviet made Soy Cuba (I am Cuba; 1964) dramatized the events leading up to the 1959 Revolution in four interconnecting stories and was once described by an American film critic as ‘a unique, insane, exhilarating spectacle.’
Serving his apprenticeship in the 1960s, Cuba’s most celebrated director, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea cut his teeth directing art-house movies such as La Muerte de un Burócrata (Death of a Bureaucrat; 1966), a satire on excessive socialist bureaucratization; and Memorias de Subdesarrollo (Memories of Underdevelopment; 1968), the story of a Cuban intellectual too idealistic for Miami, yet too decadent for the austere life of Havana. Teaming up with fellow director Juan Carlos Tabío in 1993, Gutiérrez went on to make Cuba’s all-time movie classic, the Oscar-nominated Fresa y Chocolate (Strawberry and Chocolate) – the tale of Diego, a skeptical homosexual who falls in love with a heterosexual communist militant. It remains Cuba’s cinematic pinnacle.
Havana’s growing influence in the film culture of the American hemisphere is highlighted each year in the Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano held every December in Havana. Described alternatively as the ultimate word in Latin American cinema or Cannes without the ass-kissing, this annual get-together of critics, sages and filmmakers has been fundamental in showcasing recent Cuban classics to the world, such as Viva Cuba (2005), a study of class and ideology as seen through the eyes of two children, and El Benny (2006), a biopic of mambo king Benny Moré.
To say that Cubans are cinema buffs would be a massive understatement: the crush of a crowd shattered the glass doors of a movie theater during the 2001 film festival in Havana and an adoring mob nearly rioted trying to get into Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report premier in 2002. If you’re headed for a flick, queue early.
Cuban TV has three national channels, no commercials and an obligatory nightly dose of political speeches (infinitely more boring since Fidel stepped down). Elsewhere, educational programming dominates, with Universidad Para Todos (University for All) offering full university-level courses in everything from astronomy to film editing. The news is a predictable litany of good things Cuba has done (eg big tobacco harvest, sending doctors to Africa) and bad things the US is up to (eg mucking around in the Middle East, big corporations buying influence). Mesa Redonda (Round Table) is a nightly ‘debate’ program where several people sharing the same opinion sit around discussing a topic of national or global importance. Telenovelas (soap operas) are a national obsession, and the latest favorite La Cara Oculta de la Luna (The Dark Side of the Moon) has been known to bring the country to a virtual standstill.
In terms of style, Cuba is a smorgasbord of different architectural genres with influences ranging from Spanish Moorish to French neoclassical to decorative colonial baroque. Emerging relatively unscathed from the turmoil of three revolutionary wars, well-preserved cities such as Camagüey, Santiago de Cuba and Habana Vieja have survived into the 21st century with the bulk of their original colonial features remarkably intact. The preservation has been aided further by the nomination of Trinidad, Cienfuegos and Habana Vieja as Unesco World Heritage Sites.
Some of Cuba’s oldest and most engaging architectural creations can be seen in the network of Spanish fortresses erected around the country during the 16th and 17th centuries to deter attacks from pirates and corsairs on the island’s coastal cities. Notable examples include Havana’s Castillo de la Real Fuerza, the second-oldest fort in the Americas; the labyrinthine Castillo de San Pedro del Morro in Santiago, designed by Italian military architect Giovanni Bautista Antonelli; and the massive Cabaña Click here overlooking Havana Bay, the largest fort in the Americas.
Cuban townscapes in the 17th and 18th centuries were dominated by ecclesial architecture, reflected initially in the noble cloisters of Havana’s Convento de Santa Clara, built in 1632, and culminating a century or so later in the magnificent Catedral de San Cristóbal Click here, considered by many as the country’s most outstanding baroque monument. Some of the best architecture from this period can be viewed in Habana Vieja, whose peculiar layout around four main squares – each with its own specific social or religious function – set it apart from other Spanish colonial capitals.
With a booming economy and cash raked in from a series of record-breaking sugarcane harvests, plantation-owners in the small town of Trinidad had money to burn at the start of the 19th century. Ideally positioned to the south of the verdant Valle de los Ingenios and heavily influenced by haute couture furnishings of Italy, France and Georgian England, the city’s enterprising sugar merchants ploughed their vast industrial profits into a revitalized new city full of exquisite homes and businesses that juxtaposed popular baroque and neoclassical styles with vernacular Cuban features such as wooden rejas (grilles), high ceilings and tiny postigos (doors). Isolated on the southern coast and protected by law as part of a Unesco World Heritage Site, the unique and beautiful streets of 19th-century Trinidad remain one of Latin America’s most intact colonial cities.
By the mid-19th century sturdy neoclassical buildings were the norm among the country’s bourgeoisie in cities such as Cienfuegos and Matanzas, with bold symmetrical lines, grandiose frontages and rows of imposing columns replacing the decorative baroque flourishes of the early colonial period. The style reached its high-water mark in a trio of glittering theaters: the Caridad in Santa Clara (see boxed text,), the Sauto in Matanzas and the Terry Tomás in Cienfuegos Click here. In the 1920s and ’30s a neoclassical revival delivered a brand new clutch of towering giants onto the Havana skyline, including the Washington-influenced Capitolio, the monumental Hotel Nacional and the Athenian Universidad de La Habana.
Eclecticism was the leading style in the new republican era post-1902, with a combination of regurgitated genres such as neo-Gothic, neobaroque, neo-Renaissance and neo-Moorish giving rise to a hotchpotch of groundbreaking buildings that were as eye-catching as they were outrageous. For a wild tour of Cuban eclecticism, check out the Museo de Ciencias Naturales Sandalio de Noda in Pinar del Río, the Presidential Palace (now the Museo de la Revolución) in Havana or the Byzantine-meets-Arabic Palacio de Valle in Cienfuegos Click here.
Bridging the gap between eclecticism and modernism was art deco, a lavish architectural style epitomized in structures such as New York’s Chrysler building, and best manifested in Cuba in Havana’s opulent Bacardí building Click here or some of the religious iconography exhibited in the Necrópolis Cristóbal Colón Click here.
Modernism arrived in Havana in the 1950s with a rapid surge of pre-revolutionary skyscrapers that eliminated decorative flourishes and merged function rather harmoniously with form. Visitors can observe this rich architectural legacy in the cubic Hotel Habana Libre or the skyline-hogging Focsa building Click here, an edifice that was constructed – legend has it – without the use of a single crane.
Painting and sculpture are alive and well in Cuba, despite more than four decades of asphyxiating on-off censorship. From the archaic cave paintings of Cueva Punta del Este on Isla de la Juventud to the vibrant poster art of 1960s Havana, a colorful and broad-ranging artistic pastiche has been painstakingly conserved through arts schools, government sponsorship and an eclectic mix of cross-cultural influences that include everything from Diego Rivera–style murals to European avant-gardism.
Engaging and visceral, modern Cuban art combines lurid Afro–Latin American colors with the harsh reality of the 50-year-old Revolution. For visiting foreign art lovers it’s a unique and intoxicating brew. Forced into a corner by the constrictions of the culture-redefining Cuban Revolution, budding artists have invariably found that, by co-opting with (as opposed to confronting) the socialist regime, opportunities for academic training and artistic encouragement are almost unlimited. Encased in such a volatile creative climate, the concept of graphic art in Cuba – well established in its own right before the Revolution – has flourished exponentially.
Serigraphy was first employed on the island at the beginning of the 20th century, but this distinctive style of silk-screen printing didn’t gather ground until the 1940s when, in connection with film and political posters, it enjoyed a wide distribution. The genre exploded after the 1959 Revolution when bodies such as Icaic and the propagandist Editora Política were enthusiastically sponsored by the Castro government to create thousands of informative posters designed to rally the Cuban population behind the huge tasks of building a New Society. Eschewing standard Soviet realism, Cuban poster artists mixed inherent Latin American influences with the eye-catching imagery of 1960s pop culture to create a brand new subgenre of their own. This innovative form of poster art can best be viewed at the Taller de Serigrafía René Portocarrero in Habana Vieja.
In the international context, art in Cuba is dominated by the prolific figure of Wilfredo Lam, painter, sculptor and ceramicist of mixed Chinese, African and Spanish ancestry. Born in Sagua La Grande, Villa Clara province in 1902, Lam studied art and law in Havana before departing for Madrid in 1923 to pursue his artistic ambitions in the fertile fields of post-WWI Europe. Displaced by the Spanish Civil War in 1937, he gravitated toward France where he became friends with Pablo Picasso and swapped ideas with the pioneering surrealist André Breton. Having absorbed various cubist and surrealist influences, Lam returned to Cuba in 1941 where he produced his own seminal masterpiece La Jungla (The Jungle), considered by critics to be one of the developing world’s most representative paintings.
Post-Lam Cuba’s unique artistic heritage has survived and prospered in Havana’s Centro Wilfredo Lam and the Instituto Superior de Arte Click here in outlying Cubanacán. The capital is also blessed with a splendid national art museum, the sprawling Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, housed in two separate buildings. Outside Havana further inspiration can be found in scattered artistic communities in the cities of Santiago, Camagüey and Baracoa. Diehards can also uncover notable artistic work hiding beneath the surface in other less heralded cultural outposts such as Las Tunas (known locally as the ‘city of sculptures’).
Described by aficionados as ‘a vertical representation of a horizontal act,’ Cuban dancing is famous for its libidinous rhythms and sensuous close-ups. It comes as no surprise to discover that the country has produced some of the most exciting and dexterous dancers in the world. Inheriting a love for dancing from childbirth and able to replicate perfect salsa steps by the age of two or three, Cubans are natural performers who approach dance with a complete lack of self-consciousness; a notion that leaves most visitors from Europe or North America feeling as if they’ve got two left feet.
Most Cuban dances are connected with a specific genre of music. Rumba is a music style of Afro-Cuban origin in which the rhythm is provided by drums, maracas and a singer. Accompanied by one of three sexually-charged dances, the music provides for a hypnotic and dazzling spectacle that evokes the spirits of Santería orishas (deities) who take possession of the dancers and fuel further drumming frenzies. Varieties of rumba dances include the pedestrian yambú, the faster guaguancó and the acrobatic columbia. The latter originated as a devil dance of the Náñigo rite, and today it’s performed only by solo males.
Imported into New York in the 1920s, rumba took on big-band credentials and developed into mambo under the influence of Afro-Cuban jazz. Mambo, in turn, sprouted its own distinctive dance pioneered by Cuban bandleader Pérez Prado in the late 1940s. As that was too difficult for many North Americans to master, violinist Enrique Jorrín developed a more straightforward mambo offshoot known as the chachachá in the early 1950s and the craze swept America.
On the opposite side of the coin sits danzón, a European-influenced ballroom dance that was derived from the French contredanse and the suave strains of the Spanish-influenced habanera. A bandleader known as Miguel Failde was responsible for developing the first danzóns in the late 1880s when he added syncopated rhythms and a provocative pause to the basic steps. Danzón was in vogue from 1880 until 1940, during which time it was progressively Africanized developing such exciting offshoots as charanga and danzón-chá. It still has a strong influence on Cuban popular music today.
Cuban ballet is synonymous with prima ballerina Alicia Alonso. Now well past her pointe days, Alicia cofounded the Ballet Nacional de Cuba in 1948 and her choreography is still in heavy rotation – classic stuff such as Don Quixote and Giselle, with few surprises save the powerful dancers themselves. The Festival Internacional de Ballet de La Habana (see boxed text,) takes Havana by storm in October every other year, when you can see a Swan Lake matinee and an evening performance of Carmen – a ballet junkie’s dream.
Original Cuban theater is limited, but the Cubans showcase excellent interpretations of classic foreign works including Lorca’s plays and Shakespeare’s comedies. Havana’s theaters also put on surprisingly edgy (and funny) comedy shows, professional rumba dancing and music performed by the Conjunto Folklórico Nacional de Cuba (founded in 1962), and some fantastic children’s theater – most big towns have a Teatro Guiñol (puppet theater).