Cuba prepares for 43rd Caribbean Festival

SANTIAGO DE CUBA, Cuba, May 14 (ACN) Dedicated to the Brazilian state of Bahia, the 43rd Caribbean Festival “Fiesta del Fuego”, will take place in this city on July 3 to 9 under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and its provincial division.

According to Orlando Verges, director of the organizing entity—Casa del Caribe—the homage to Brazil, which was also guest of honor in 1997 and 2010, responds to the tribute that the International Book Fair paid to the South American nation this year.

“It’s a joint strategy of cultural entities, despite the current economic circumstances, to reopen the doors of Cuba to that country and the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva,” he said. “Salvador de Bahia, the first capital of Brazil, is a hub of the African diaspora in the new world and home to the nation’s most popular carnival.”

Also featured in the program is the International Colloquium “El Caribe que nos une” [The Caribbean that unites us], focused on social participation, traditional popular culture and local development vis-à-vis the challenges posed by neo-liberal globalization, the expansion of finance capital, and the world economic crisis and intended to promote scientific exchange among social managers, academics from various fields, cultural promoters, activists, public officials and others equally engaged in the search for new approaches to the role of urban and rural communities.

The event will include workshops and courses on Cuban and Caribbean dance and percussion, popular music, visual arts, craftworks, theater and religion, in addition to book presentations, exhibitions, tattoo and piercing sessions, parades and passacaglia shows, as well as the Yemayá Festival, the Gran Gaga festival of Haitian origin, and the traditional Burning of the Devil.

Casa del Caribe reported that applications have been already received from the United States, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Guadeloupe and Uruguay.