Some years ago, the Department of Cultural Affairs in Ajaccio -capital of the island of Córcega- and the Brownstone Foundation, based in Paris, with the Ministry of Culture of Cuba, planned an exhibition of Cuban art presentations and shows in important stages of the French city to the Mediterranean center. Motivated by the fertile creativity of Cuban art, for its internal dynamics of management and conquests that have enabled a significant position on important international circuits; seduced by so diverse and innovative speeches, where exchange between tradition and modernity go beyond exhaustive regulations and own Cuban geographical boundaries, the sample still exhibited in Ajaccio continues to captivate the viewers.
The vast artistic expression of music, dance, exhibitions, conferences, cinema, literature was inaugurated last February 20 at the Fesch Museum of Fine Arts Palace in Ajaccio, with the presence of officials of the Cuban embassy in France, with Mr. Gilbert Brownstone and Cuban artists and representatives of our cultural institutions, and will remain until next May 5.
"Farewell! Ajaccio in the present of Cuba "has been the welcome slogan to the art exhibition. A selection of anthological works of the French collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, important pieces of Cuban art vanguard of the early twentieth century and part of the collection of contemporary Cuban art at the National Council of Plastic Arts, were inhabiting the different rooms of Fesch museum, allowing, after a particular curatorship, a concurrent dialogue through thematically, textural, frames and progressions.
Likewise, the EspaceDiamant theater was the stage chosen for the concerts by Ernán López-Nussa, Miguel Nunez and Carlos Varela, who invited other artists to share the stage. Also, the writer Wendy Guerra gave the lecture "The Cuban literature today" after the presentation of Negra, her latest novel. A suggestive sample of Cuban cinema produced by the ICAIC under the authorship of our most exemplary filmmakers integrated programming agenda. From Memorias del subdesarrollo ( by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea) to Lucia ( by Humberto Solas), through the memories of the legendary Soy Cuba, by MijailKalatozov, or Los dioses rotos, by Ernesto Darana or Viva Cuba !, by Juan Carlos Cremata, the itinerary which is exhibited in cinemas of Ajaccio celebrates the birthday of ICAIC in this 2015.
The DanzAbierta company presented the shows Malson and Showroom. Both pieces under the choreography of Susana Pous, have had a sustained journey in different Cuban scenarios and the world. From Chicago to Seoul, the creative force of Susana has been praised, while the expressive rigor and interpretive mastery of the dancers of the company has been praised and rewarded. They were trained in the artistic teaching centers of Cuba, and they showed the nobility of wit when talent turns into transformative expertise and generator of subtleties to the dance. In Malson, five characters demarcated in time and space outline ambiguous relationships. New realities, perhaps the result of her mind, emerge as an alternative to build more vivid, happy, past, future environments, developers? The coming and going from one to another dimension, the ambiguity between reality and fiction, carnal desire and the game with the spaces of power, are shaping a story framed by images of Havana. A piece that combines dance, video, sounds, in the same spectacular structure.
While in the empty, immense, almost desolate space of Showroom, which was the piece chosen to close the performing presentations; six bodies are debated in it before a possible path of salvation and joy. Shadows that, as hope to the lift, plot the best routes. Does the mask as a device that hides and reveals the essential? Perhaps the summary of musical and dance heritage housed now in the dancing body of DanzAbierta, a fact that allows the choreographer to articulate with fine grace and wisdom
the discourse of the piece.
Without any doubt, "Farewell! Ajaccio in the present of Cuba ", unique artistic manifestation of excellence of Cuban art today, has served as amplification of the actual bridge of crosslinks, of give and take, of permanent dialogue of Cuban art and French art. To acknowledge the efforts of the Corsican hosts for allowing the presentations without compromising space or vacant rearrangements. As many of the works exhibited in Ajaccio hold the discursive purpose, just the will to go forward always triumphant, resolved, conquerors of a more humane future in their complicity with the present and our past is enough, a subtle way to transfigure the body and their meanings.
