The film director Juan Carlos Tabío passed away  this Monday, January 18, in the Cuban capital, a sad news that marks the "goodbye" to an iconic and beloved figure of our cinematography.

    Born in 1943, Tabío deserved the recognition of the public and the specialized critics for the imprint of dissimilar works of his authorship. Among them, Se permuta (1985), a classic work in the comedy genre, also distinguished by the performance of Cuba's star Rosita Fornés.

Winner of the National Film Award in 2014, the prestigious filmmaker is also credited with the film Plaff (1988), an undeniable success in the genre he defended, in addition to co-directing Fresa y Chocolate (1993) and Guantanamera (1995) with Tomás Gutiérrez Alea.

Lista de espera (2000) and El cuerno de la abundancia (2008) are among his most recent titles.

His body will be cremated and soon we will be informed about the farewell performance of this prolific creator who set standards and cultivated an important legacy in Cuban cinematography.

(With information from Cubacine)

English version Hector Hdez.

 

Belonging to the Projects and Services of Engineering of Culture Company ATRIO, based in Havana, the group of creation ConArte de Villa Clara created in January 2019, develops in Cienfuegos a group of activities in different sectors in Cienfuegos.

The performance of ConArte has in tourism its main clients related to the setting, decoration and change of image of premises and spaces, activities that constitute part of its reason of being united to the design.

Roberto Martínez Quintana, creator of  ConArte Group of Villa Clara, explained to this media that: "Recently we worked in the International Clinic of Cienfuegos, we worked in Faro Luna and  Pasacaballos hotels on the occasion of the International Fair of tourism of Nature, TURNA also we are working in the aesthetic enhancement of the Rancho Luna hotel".

The creative group ConArte is also carrying out these days the assembly of around 80 square meters of false ceiling that can be registered in the Center of Molecular Biology that is being set up today in Cienfuegos, a donation from its performance to contribute to the Cuban public health in the confrontation to the COVID-19
Taken from PERLAVISION.

English version Hector Hdez,.

They say it was the longest walk in Cuba, and I wanted to check it out. I walked from one end of Prado de Cienfuegos to the other. They added later that it was the most transparent bay and I went all the way to see the fish jump. However, it was a figure beaten by the wind, it was the thin woman crying out to the sky, who stole my attention.

- Whose sculpture is it?

- Rita Longa's, answered a local, dryly, perhaps surprised by my ignorance.

And I, who came from the other side of the island, only understood the dimension of that story when I was taken to the Guanaroca lagoon, when the legend came to life, when I imagined the tears of that Indian mother who shook the güiro with her dead child and fish, turtles, rivers, islets came out... I only understood when I tasted the salt water.

I will not have to say what answer I received, what name I was told, when in Las Tunas - the capital of the sculptures - I asked about that woman lying on coral, with a folded leg, her arm arched; with a majestic nakedness. I was in front of the Fountain of the Antilles.

Rita Longa Aróstegui (1912-2000)... was chasing me. Right there I was certain that I would be face to face with that artist who had trapped pain in metal, who had embodied Cuba and the "sounding islands" of the Caribbean.                                            

Cuban sculptor Rita Longa. Photos: Internet  

Face to face

Time jumped, I ploughed the island. I pushed destiny a little bit -I confess it- and now I am in Havana, at the headquarters of the Advisory Council for the Development of Monumental and Environmental Sculpture (Codema), which the artist presided over between 1980 and 1996. Rita Longa herself welcomes me. In the hand that holds out to me I can guess a basalt character. She arrived at the sculpture by chance, that's what she tells me. I move my head in disbelief. These are her words:

"I entered San Alejandro in the twenty-eighth or twenty-ninth years with the purpose of studying Commercial Drawing, as my family at that time thought it was the best way to make a living. When I entered the exam , I went through the Modeling classroom, and I realized that the form was the best way to develop myself... I remember, that already in the classroom, I had to copy a huge plaster ear, and although I disliked the ear, I loved the way I expressed myself. The sculpture was love at first sight".

The next question can be assumed without effort: the sculpture of Guanaroca, and of course, the Taino Village, the passion for our aboriginal ancestors?

Guanaroca, an aboriginal legend trapped in a sculpture on the Cienfuegos boardwalk.
 
"I couldn't tell you for sure what the cause of that is. Perhaps the root comes from my first free creation in San Alejandro: Hatuey at the Bonfire, a commission from Juan José Sicre, the great master of my generation... Ah... the figure on the Hatuey beer label is inspired by a head that is my work.... I could also approach the legend of Canimao, inspired by the story of an Indian who stuck his silica knife in his chest, an offering to the Bat god for having saved his girlfriend from serious fevers. From there, a sculptural set came out.

"Something I could never forget is the Taino Village in Guama, at the Treasure Lagoon. It took the working group 20 months to make the sculptural monuments, thinking about all the activities that our aborigines did in their time. I was proposed to bring an Indian from the Sierra, but I did not accept, although several physical studies were made on the skull with the advice of the archaeologist René Herrera Fritot and the anthropologist Manuel Rivero de la Calle".

From Tropicana and more

From indigenous heritage to the Tropicana. I always noticed the sculpture that presides over this universally famous cabaret, who wouldn't? I always found it curious that it is precisely a classical dancer...

"Very simple. Max Borges (son), the architect, is involved in the Arcos de Cristal and other extensions at Tropicana and he proposes to make me a classical dancer. Hence La Ballerina. The reason is that at that time the film The Red Shoes[1] was being shown in Havana with great success and this was taken advantage of. He also tells me that the ballet was perfect for a place where people danced, regardless of whether it was a cabaret. Martin Fox, the owner, then bought the fountains that the rest of the well-known dancers have".

It was still missing. My curiosity was piqued. And there I am, throwing myself at asking for inspiration, for the model of the Tropicana dancer.

"No, I don't use models. A lot of dancers have claimed to be the model, but it wasn't anyone specific. I'm very self-conscious about having to depend on models.

The Cuban capital, those who were born there, those who visit it have a special relationship with Rita Longa, with her "deer" from the 26 Zoo and with La Virgen del Camino. These are stories to be told.

"Los Venaditos", that is to say, the Family Group, as it is called, dates from the time of Pepe San Martín, Minister of Public Works of the government of Grau, who was nicknamed Pepe Plazoleta. He commissioned me the work, where generation after generation of children have been portrayed and that is a great satisfaction for a creator. It was commissioned in 1947.
Family Group at the 26 Zoo, an iconic work by Rita Longa.

"He was also the one who commissioned La Virgen del Camino from me. There had been a winery there owned by a Spaniard from the province of León and in a small urn was its patron saint. When the bus stop was removed and the remodeling and the Vía Blanca came, all that fell apart. Many asked for the restitution of their virgin and Pepe asked me on one condition: that she be very Cuban. That's why her figure is on a palm tree, with the compass rose in her hand.
La Virgen del Camino, an interpretation by Rita Longa.
 
Oriente

It was time to sail the island, again, this time towards the East, where I came from. From sculpture to sculpture, from memory to memory.

The Fountain of the Antilles in Las Tunas.
 
"A moment I remember with particular affection is the Fountain of the Antilles in Las Tunas. I will never forget the test of lights for this work in 1977. When everything lit up and the water started to flow, it was very exciting for me... So was the arrival of the rooster in Morón, in 1982. We set out to return it fairly to its people, and it had been planned to arrive at dawn, but the information leaked out and it turned out to be an incredible popular festival; but one of the most satisfying moments in my life was in Santiago, related to The Forest of Heroes... have you been there?

And suddenly, the interviewer becomes an interviewee. I told him about my experience as a pioneer, of changing my scarf in front of his work, in the small elevation of the Avenue of the Americas. Something is floating in the air. Rita gets up:

"I tell you that I dreamt of the opening ceremony of that work: the street was all dark, and as the hero was called at roll call, the corresponding spotlights were turned on. I told Armando Hart, Minister of Culture at the time, and that's what happened, in October 1973. The work is made of Bayamo marble.

"It's a tribute to Che and his comrades. It tries to capture a given moment of each combatant in the jungle, near the river, in that environment of nature and combat. That's why the arrangement resembles the characteristics of a forest, a network of pieces. The main idea is that each figure reminds the guerrilla it represents and also any other; that's why the silhouette in the marble is like a veil; that's why the path is of bald Chinese, of river stones in zigzag, to evoke that nature".

How long will I have talked to Rita Longa? How much of the notes I took then have I lost? When exactly was it? These are questions that I will not be able to answer letter by letter, number by number; but right now I feel the breeze of the Cienfuegos boardwalk, I feel the outstretched hand of an artist.

(Taken from La Jiribilla)