Opera de la Calle and a Show for Beyoncé

Opera de la Calle and a Show for Beyoncé
April 12, 2013
Fernando Ravsberg*

HAVANA TIMES — Beyonce's trip to Cuba was an attention grabbing event,
despite the singer's request for discretion. Nobody in Havana talked
about anything else as they watched her walk down Obispo Street, eat at
the La Guarida restaurant and try to slip out through the back entrance
of an art gallery.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the most radical right-wing exiles and
their representatives in Congress began threatening to apply the full
weight of the law if they discovered the singer had visited Cuba without
permission to travel here – as is required of US citizens by their
government.

In the middle of her dash across the city, runnning here and there, I
got a phone call from Ulises Aquino, the director of the "Opera de la
Calle" (Opera in the Street). He was informing me that they would be
reopening their space because Beyonce had asked to see their show. He
asked me to be very discrete with that information, not wanting crowds
to show up. Only a small group of special guests would be invited.

For me the big news was that the government was going to allow the
company to perform in the Cabildo, a venue that had been closed for
months for alleged "illicit enrichment." Actually, they also had a
restaurant there that enabled them to pay about $80 USD a month to each
member of the opera.

The closing of the facility had left the musicians, singers, dancers,
the lighting crew and sound engineers with their state wages of $17 a
month, while all the waitresses and cooks ended up on the street.

I thought this may have been a chance happening or "manifest destiny"
because their space, El Cabildo, had been closed down on an evening when
a delegation from the Pastors for Peace (a pro-Cuban government
humanitarian group from the United States) was watching a performance
and now they were reopening it with the arrival of a famous singer from
that same country.

However, when I mentioned it at home, no one attached any importance to
the issue. Instead, everyone asked me to take them to see Beyonce – so I
ended up accompanying the four women in my family to go see her. I was
too late in understanding why Aquino had asked me for the utmost discretion.

Things changed at noon on Friday, April 5. I got a got another phone
call informing me that the show would be at the Arenal Cinema. I figured
that bad weather must have forced them from the Cabildo, a charming but
out-of-doors facility unprotected from downpours.

At that point I still didn't know that the storm caused that had caused
the change of venue had more to do with the nature of men than with
Mother Nature. Nevertheless, at the door of the theater I found Aquino
with a small group of people, all obviously enraged.

I went up to them and they started telling me that they had coordinated
with the Ministry of Culture to reopen Cabildo to hold a show for
Beyonce. However several officials had appeared later that morning
telling them they couldn't use the center.

According to Aquino, he had been told that — by direct order of the
Havana Provincial Government and the Communist Party of the capital —
that the Cabildo was to remain closed no matter who had authorized its
reopening and despite whoever was supposedly coming to see the show.

That's how it ended for those of us invited to the Arenal – sitting on
iron or plastic chairs in the middle of semi-dilapidated hall with
cracked walls and ceilings. I thought that with a little luck, and if
nothing fell on her head, Beyonce would at least experience a truly
"bohemian" atmosphere.

At around 9:00 p.m. — without the singer, but precisely as scheduled —
the show started…an hour of music, song and dance that fused cultures
and rhythms as diverse as African religious songs, opera and rock.

Beyonce missed it (they say she went to another concert), but we'll
never know if it was merely by chance or if someone saw it fit to
discourage her from seeing a group of artists who, right now, are
completely pissed off.

In the meantime, while some authorities expend their energies on the
crusade against the "Opera in Street," public transportation is still
highly deficient, trash is piling up in the streets, inspectors are
becoming corrupt, and hoarders are emptying the stores.
—–

(*) An authorized HT translation of the original published in Spanish by
BBC Mundo

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=91112