As the country's 50th year of communism approaches, artists are testing the boundaries of tolerance
The electronic beat swelled louder, pumping up the crowd, and spotlights beamed onto the catwalk for the night's most dramatic entrance. Maykel González, an ebony beauty, scythed down the walkway on Rollerblades wearing nothing but sparkling gold hotpants, a magnificent Afro and a coy smile. The crowd cheered, hooted and whistled. Fashion shows were not supposed to be this much fun.
Until recently, fashion shows were not supposed even to exist here. This was not New York or Milan but Havana, capital of Fidel Castro's C“You could say this costume is a bit shocking, because I’m nearly naked, but there is more tolerance these days,” said González, 23, posing for photographs backstage. “You could say things have matured.” Ignacio Carmona, the designer of his costume, and a ringer for Elton John in an all-white suit, nodded in agreement. “Things are much more relaxed.”
Something is stirring in Cuba on the eve of the revolution’s 50th anniversary. But what exactly? It is not politics. Fidel and Raúl Castro still dominate all important institutions. It is not economics. Mini-reforms announced last year have stalled. “Waiting, waiting, waiting for change, just as always,” sighed one senior diplomat.
There are, however, some Cubans who are not waiting - young artists, musicians, designers and film-makers are splashing rainbow colors on cultural conformity. It is not quite glasnost, but these aesthetic innovators are nudging the boundaries of official tolerance to give voice to a generation yearning to engage with the rest of the world and redefine what it is to be Cuban.
“There is a feeling that this is a historical moment and a time to do different things,” said Yandi Morgado, a young designer at the fashion show. Miel Lorenzo, 25, a model wearing an outfit of balloons, dreamed of recognition. “We would like these creative ideas to go around the world to show what young Cubans can do.”
The constraints are daunting. Most artists are broke and struggle for materials and tools, be it fabrics, microphones, lenses or paint. If they cross a political line, they risk arrest. Cross the Florida Straits and they risk drowning. But cultural controls have been relaxed and Cubans want to hear and see their experiences reflected in the arts.
“An artist has to find a way of protesting, of reaching people, of making people think,” said Giordano Serrano, 32, the pierced, shaven-headed co-founder of Qva Libre, one of the island’s most popular bands. “We are a group of protest, but we protest in a subtle, sort of poetic way.” Their success was apparent from the number of fans who stopped Serrano during a stroll down G Street, Havana’s bohemian hub.
Qva Libre - spelled that way because the name Cuba Libre is copyrighted - has fused rock, pop, jazz, hardcore and hip-hop into a distinct sound that criticises the island’s shortcomings but avoids provoking the ever-vigilant authorities. “The revolution has many good things. But sometimes one has to push for the other side,” said Serrano.
Artists have more freedom than journalists and they benefit from one of the region’s best educated populations. “The cultural level here is better than the rest of Latin America,” said Gabriel Calaforra, 75, a former ambassador, linguist and scholar. Spry and bright-eyed, he has hosted gatherings of young people known as the “Monday club” in his rickety, book-strewn apartment for more than a decade. Visitors play guitar, swap novels, argue philosophy and trade titbits about foreign music and films. If conversation turns to politics, the rule is to move to the crumbling balcony.
“Without a doubt the club has an informer, but I don’t know who it is and don’t want to know,” said Calaforra, smiling wryly. “Often it’s the person you least suspect.” Even so he is about to launch the “Thursday club”, evenings dedicated to discussing reforms of the revolution.
For teenagers such as Jorge, a dancer poised to enter the national ballet school, the state is not a watchdog but a generous sponsor. “Here you have the opportunity to do whatever you want to do. If you work hard and you really want to do it, there is a set path.” A view echoed by one western diplomat who was otherwise critical of the revolution: “The arts are vibrant and very accessible. Dead ordinary people go to the opera.”
With the average monthly wage just $17 (less than £12), it can be a struggle to eat, but with subsidized cinemas charging just a few cents there is no trouble feasting on the big screen. Mainstream Hollywood fare is shown as well as documentaries and art films from Europe, Asia and Latin America.
This month 1,500 people attended the premiere of Che, the Guevara biopic by Steven Soderbergh, at the 30th Havana Festival of Latin American Cinema. Benicio del Toro, who plays the revolutionary icon, attended. Another film, The Broken Gods, a seamy portrayal of prostitutes and pimps in Havana, was applauded by the audience and fêted in Juventud Rebelde, the communist youth newspaper.
Cinema has greater liberty than other mediums to tackle sensitive topics. The Lives of Others, the 2007 Oscar-winning film about East Germany’s secret police, was shown, albeit just once. Tolerance blossomed in the 1990s with films such as Strawberry and Chocolate, which dealt with gay rights, and Guantanamera, which dealt with corruption.
As a young man Fidel Castro showed little interest in the arts. “I have a very bad ear for music,” he once said. When he visited New York in 1959, friends urged a visit to the Museum of Modern Art. Instead he went to the Brooklyn zoo. However, he has always been a bookworm and devoured literature as well as history, economics and philosophy.
Artists and intellectuals initially hailed the revolution, but passion cooled when poets such as Heberto Padilla were jailed and free-thinking newspapers such as Lunes were replaced by communist party mouthpieces such as Granma - “as journalistically attractive throughout its decades of existence as the telephone list of an army barracks,” observed Volker Skierka, a Castro biographer.
Worse was to come with the persecution of homosexuals on the grounds that they stoked counter-revolutionary cultural sentiment. Repression eased in the 1990s to the point that state TV now screens Brokeback Mountain and Mariela Castro, the daughter of Raúl, champions gay rights as head of the National Center for Sex Education. She once saw her father as “macho and homophobic”, she told reporters. “But as I have grown and changed as a person, so I have seen him change.”
For gays, the relief is immense. “I am not sure if this is because of Raúl, the supposed reforms or what, but at least we are not being threatened,” said Yosmani, 27, strolling past El Prado with his boyfriend, Héctor, 33. “Look, look, I can even hold his hand in the street now!”
It has also become more acceptable to flaunt wealth. In the past year restrictions on owning mobile phones, DVD players and computers have been lifted, prompting shopping sprees by a privileged minority with hard currency. “We like to buy good stuff, nice stuff, like you do in your countries,” said Miguel, 20, clutching a mobile and queuing at an Adidas store in Neptuno Street.
But political controls remain strong and those who cross the line pay the price. Just ask Gorki Aguila. The outspoken singer of the punk band Porno para Ricardo (Porn for Ricardo) has been jailed and now lives under constant surveillance. In songs such as “El Comandante” he screams expletives at Fidel and Raúl, whom he considers geriatric tyrants. This year Gorki, as he is known, faced returning to jail for “social dangerousness” and violating “communist morality”, but after an international outcry he was fined and released.
A telephone interview with him was repeatedly interrupted by state eavesdroppers. “I cannot tell you over the phone when we are going to play because then these assholes - yes, you asshooooooooles - will come to give us a hard time.” The line went dead. After dialing again, Gorki resumed. “So we play very underground, maybe four concerts a year. I’ve been in jail, which is shit, and when I came out it was also shit, another jail. I am being watched all the time.” Click, brr.
Another call, and Gorki continued. “There is a youth culture that is trying to do things, but there is no space, so sometimes people stay where they started. We are isolated here. Culture is stuck, music is stuck.” Click, brr. Another call. “But we do what we can, at least we do something, and we’ll keep doing it. And when one is fucked, one tries to find a way to keep going.” The line went dead.
Even groups who stay on the right side of the authorities, such as Qva Libre, are controlled. The band acted in a controversial film, Havana Blues, a story about young musicians seduced by foreign producers, only for reality to echo the plot. The producers invited Qva Libre to Europe to promote the soundtrack, but the band were denied exit visas. “The system kills artists because of its nonsensical rules,” said Serrano. “They want everybody to follow the mainstream.”
For some the lure of artistic freedom and lucrative recording contracts proves irresistible - and tragic. Elvis Manuel, a rising star of reggaeton, a wildly popular blend of rap, reggae and Latin pop, was promised big bucks if he made it to Miami. The smuggler’s boat capsized and the 18-year-old vanished. His mother and two fellow performers survived and were returned to Cuba last April. “We were told we would be millionaires in two months,” Alejandro “DJ Jerry” Rodríguez told reporters.
Artists who stay make do. Often that means selling their talent to tourists, repeating the same thing over and over. “Yup, pretty much every day you’ll find us here,” said a member of Tradiciones del Son, a Buena Vista Social Club-style salsa group, which plays in Bar San Carlos on San Ignacio Street. After each song they hawk CDs to mojito-sipping tourists in shorts and flip-flops.
Those with creative drive find ways of innovating, often by composing and performing experimental songs for friends. “The Cuban is creative and always finds ways of doing something,” said Serrano. “Self-taught musicians, the avant-garde, are the ones leading the cultural movement here now.”
Painters face similar dilemmas. Tourists snap up portraits of Che Guevara and Havana street scenes, so that is what they paint, endlessly. “There are some good young painters that are trying to find a space, but it is hard. We need to feed ourselves,” said Eduardo, 20, at an open-air art market. Nicolás Alayo, an older artist, was more blunt. “The tourists are the only buyers, and they want shit, so we give them shit. We get money in our pocket, everyone is happy. But the real artists also produce real art. They do it for themselves.” His workshop was full of abstract, disembodied portraits. “I paint what I like,” he said. “No one can stop me.”
In the newly vibrant workshops, studios and theaters of Havana, increasing numbers of artists are following in his defiant footsteps.
uba, a communist island more famed for austerity and ideology than glamor and glitz. More surprising still was that González was male: a strapping, muscular model transformed for the night into a gay fantasy. The Cuban state used to be homophobic and prudish, yet here it was allowing a risqué show in a prime location - in front of the Museum of the Revolution.
