2018
Workshop: Poetry, Art, and Civic Engagement in Cubaba

DATA OF INTEREST

GUEST:
Rafael Almanza


Synopsis:

In the spring of 2018, Instar welcomed Rafael Almanza, an intellectual from Camagüey, winner of the Premio Nacional de Literatura Independiente Gastón Baquero, and main organizer of La Peña del Júcaro Martiano, one of the oldest independent cultural spaces in Cuba. Almanza demystified Cuba's founding fathers, presenting them as human beings, poets, playwrights, painters, and musicians. These nation builders proposed that ethics and moral coherence were aligned with freedom of artistic expression.


A workshop with my family:

"Tania Bruguera wants you to do a workshop for her next week," Eliécer Jiménez told me. He's a documentary filmmaker and like family to me. Suddenly I found myself in an apartment on San Ignacio, in Old Havana, the home of Léster Álavarez, an artist who's like family to me. Then in walked Bruguera, blonde-haired and impetuous.

I had never met anyone who had exhibited at MOMA or the Tate Gallery. According to other friends that are like family to me, she was like a possessed person who had used any means possible to reach the heights of which so many of us dream. She walked in, sat down, spoke, and became like family to me. As it should be. On Thursday afternoon, at Tania's house in Tejadillo - my Old Havana had never been more intimate or more mine - I began my talk on poetry, art, and civic engagement in Cuba, complete with a microperformance in which I ran away from Tania.

Yes, they're afraid of her, and even though we were in the courtyard, the audience looked on from the upper floors, not wanting to enter through the open door and take a seat. A glorious young photographer was about to throw an iron at them, but thank God he didn't. Varela the violinist; Céspedes the poet, Latin translator, songwriter, and father of the Cuban trova; Amalia Simoni, the interpreter of Verdi at the main theatre in Puerto Príncipe; the members of the Camagüey Philharmonic that left en masse for the woods; Poveda, Boti, and Acosta, the three political poets that launched 20th century Cuban poetry; Villena the metaphysician who went missing in 1930; the wonderful cast of characters who were politicians as well as models of appreciation for literature, art, and the creators who, in turn, were models of civic and political engagement: all of them flashed before our eyes, showing us that Tania isn't an outsider from Germany, the United States, or Canada, she's part of the Cuban tradition where poetry, art, and civic engagement are in relationship and in search of the best kind of politics, which is the art of pursuing humankind's happiness, according to Martí. I was happy with the audience participation, which was highly intellectual and perfectly sincere. By the end, it felt like we were floating on a cloud. Joy, in our homeland, is one of our great civic strengths.

Friday began with the news that they had shut down the corner bar because of us. I'm not sure if they thought that the habitual drinkers would join in the workshop. But we weren't planning any kind of revolt. We got drunk instead on Guy Pérez-Cisneros, a refined man well-versed in both the arts and diplomacy, who helped write the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, inspired by José Martí. We had to consider, of course, Martí, the father of poetry, art, and civic engagement in Cuba, who created the formula for our democracy: "with everyone, and for the good of everyone," the concluding words of Guy's speech to the United Nations on December 10, 1948. So we studied Martí both as the pinnacle of the relationship between poetry, art, and civic engagement in Cuba and as the creator of a party devoted to impeccable democracy. Wouldn't it be good if the future "Delegado de la Patria," president, or national leader had to be elected year after year in free elections, like Martí did, in order to eliminate even the remote possibility of authoritarianism or dictatorship? Maestro Ángel Santiesteban shared in Martí's passion; the young people sincerely supported him. Our only lament was the absence of patrons at the bar.

It's dangerous to visit the sick, I thought, on Holy Saturday, when Christ is in the sepulchre and it seems like hope is dead. When I was a kid, they used to call it Saturday of Glory... I know that the poet Rafael Alcides is tough, like Ángel "the Angel" Santiesteban, but he can come off as a bit brusque. Once again I trusted in my family, and I sat next to the poet, who barely spoke but was lucid and filled with courage. It's Saturday of Glory, Alcides said, suddenly. We can trust one another, like it says on the sweatshirts that Tania's crew has on. Trust, fellow Cuban, in Tania Bruguera. Trust in Rafael Alcides' poetry and civic engagement. Trust in your family. Have faith in Holy Week.


Bio:

Rafael Almanza
(Camagüey Cuba, 1957)

Almanza is a poet, novelist, essayist, art and literature critic, editor, cultural promoter, art curator, and independent journalist. He is also a teacher. Almanza won the 2017 Premio Nacional de Literatura Independiente Gastón Baquero prize awarded at the Festival Vista in Miami. He is General Coordinator for Ediciones Homagno. For 24 years, Almanza organized La Peña del Júcaro Martiano, one of the oldest independent cultural spaces in Cuba, which is currently banned by the Cuban government. He founded the independent magazine La hora de Cuba.