Warming American-Cuban relations have paved the way for a broad Cuban cultural festival to come to New York City. Si Cuba will bring various presentations of Cuban art, dance, music, film, photography, workshops and panels to the City between March and June offering a look at a culture we’ve been denied for far too long. The full schedule can be viewed here. Two musical performances to note are:
Telmary Diaz (pictured above) at BAM Cafe, 4/23 at 9 pm (free). From BAM’s website:
Hip-hop artist Telmary Diaz—a “Cuban rhyming revolution” (NPR)—edges Cuban music away from son, salsa, and Buena Vista Social Club and confidently into the global realm. At once a rapper, activist, and poet, Diaz embraces her Cuban musical heritage as well as hip-hop’s cosmopolitan future, dispensing crisp Spanish rhymes over busy bell patterns and timbales, nu-jazz guitar changes, and the peaks of reggae beats. The result is a syncretic sound infused with history—and guaranteed to secure Diaz as an undisputed leader of Cuba’s hip-hop revolution. Presented in association with Habana | Harlem.
I’m going to see Los Munequitos de Matanzas at Symphony Space, 5/5 – 5/7 at 8 pm. From Symphony Space’s website:
Cuba’s legendary Los Muñequitos de Matanzas return to NY for the first time since 2002, following a nearly decade-long ban of Cuban artists coming to the U.S. Renowned for their fiery rumbas, dynamic drumming and sacred rituals, the musicians, singers and dancers of Los Muñequitos are recognized throughout the world as members of the most vital ensemble to sustain and popularize the African roots of Cuban culture.
“spectacular sensual dancing and some of the most complex drumming to be heard in this hemisphere.” - The New York Times