The art of the Cuban mountains “came down” to Santiago › Culture › Granma

SANTIAGO DE CUBA – During the week that is ending, five artistic groups – from Candelaria, in Artemisa; Cuatro Vientos, in Escambray; Buey Arriba, in Granma; Los Negros, in Santiago de Cuba; and Manuel Tames, in Guantánamo – have shaken the Heroic City, which for the first time hosted the National Meeting of Comprehensive Mountain Artistic Groups, whose 21st edition closes today.

The CAIMs bring together some 240 people – soldiers, instructors and community enthusiasts – who cultivate five forms of art (music, dance, theatre, literature and plastic arts) in unique units of the Youth Labor Army, dedicated to promoting human creation in the intricate areas of our mountains, which give “continuity to the purpose of Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, who created them in the late 1980s to safeguard traditions and unite wills to make art in and from the mountains, always with integrity,” Héctor Muñoz Sosa explained to Granma.

He fondly remembers that October 30, 1992, when in the municipality of Guisa, accompanied by Abel Prieto –then Minister of Culture–, they created the CAIM of the province of Granma, “of which I am the founder and in which I will remain until I have the strength.”

With similar enthusiasm, the young woman from Cienfuegos, Zulaine Cuéllar Pérez, sang in several communities in the eastern city, “in Boniato and La República people were very happy, also in a Penitentiary Center and in the Southern Children’s Hospital,” she commented.

All of this further compromises the holding of these biennial meetings, said art instructor Roberto Nilo Sánchez, who knows the Escambray mountain range in the center of the island like the back of his hand. “This is the fifth one I’ve participated in, and I’m becoming more and more convinced that I’m doing the right thing.”

In this edition, Santiago de Cuba has been an excellent host, its people have delighted in the rural traditions –which are so close to a city of half a million inhabitants surrounded by the Sierra Maestra–, “there have been 30 communities, three penitentiary centers, four military units, three hospitals and several galas, a very special one dedicated to the birthday of the Commander in Chief, as part of this competitive event,” explained Mayer Ailén Zamora Figueredo, cultural-recreational work instructor at the EJT.

Soldiers, instructors, and fans from the communities where the military units are located live, work, and create art, “because the CAIMs are a kind of cultural centers in such remote places and guarantee extension work, with quality programming, much needed in these times, with the development of sociocultural research that allows us to put on shows like the ones we presented in Santiago,” said Diango González Guerra, president of the National Council of Cultural Centers.

The meeting brought smiles and tears; emotional scenes in vulnerable neighborhoods and poor families; moments of vitality for sick children; a feeling of freedom for prisoners and the certainty that Raúl’s purpose transcends, as it revitalizes Cuban culture from its roots.