Advertisement
Published: December 10th 2016
Wed, 12/7, was another busy day. In the morning we visited a school of dance, and watched an amazing rehearsal of the Nutcracker. We sang for them and they really seemed to enjoy it. I will post pictures when I have better internet. It is very hard to get Internet here.
On the way back from the school, we visited another Che memorial, this was where he derailed Bautista's train, leading to the "triumph of the revolution " in the words of our guide, Gustavo.
Santa Clara is a university town and has a relatively liberal spirit. It seems to be a center for the struggle for gay rights. According to Gustavo, there is no prejudice of any kind in Cuba now ( no racism, nor sexism, or homophobia). Not sure I completely buy that rosy picture, but we performed that night at a gay club and met lots of gay men at this bar, Mejunje and it all seemed very mellow.
Our performance went very well, and a Cuban television crew showed up and filmed us and interviewed our director. This later was shown on the national news. The family at our casa particular saw us on
20161207_110139
Gustavo (our guide) talking with an official at the School for Dance.the news and seemed quite impressed! Joe Knight was interviewed earlier on the radio about our choir, so we are making a bit of a splash!
There was another choir who came to hear us, the Coro Provincial de Villa Clara. We were to have met them earlier for a workshop, but we missed it due to miscommunication. Anyway, we had an impromptu workshop after our performance and sang and talked with them until late at night. It was very moving and also we had a great time with them.
We're finding that the choirs here are all professional, they are paid ($20-40 a month which is the standard government wage) and they practice 5 days a week. It shows. They are so polished! They seem amazed that we manage with so little time to rehearse while holding down other kinds of jobs.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.101s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 7; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0444s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
