news from US-Cuba Cultural Exchange

For further information:
James Early, US-Cuba Cultural Exchange – (202) 744-2682 or (202) 882-8208
Patricia Pego Guerra, Cuban Interests Section – (202) 797-8518 ext. 105

Release with accompanying multi-media at http://pitch.pe/26738
 
CUBA CULTURAL DAYS 2009 to feature participation of DANNY GLOVER. Guest of honor will be Cuban National Ballet Prima Ballerina VIENGSAY VALDES
 
Events begin this evening (Thursday) with exhibit of works by Cuban painters at Venezuelan Embassy. Panel discussion with Glover to take place on Sunday at GALA Hispanic Theatre in Washington. Valdés is first Cuban performing artist to arrive to U.S. since 2003.

US-Cuba Cultural Exchange and the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, DC will co-sponsor a Roundtable Discussion on US-Cuba Cultural Relations this Sunday, September 27, 2009 from 6:30-8:00pm at the GALA Hispanic Theatre, 3333 14th Street, NW in Washington, D.C.
 
A reception in the lobby of the GALA Hispanic Theater will immediately follow the event.
 
The Roundtable is organized by US-Cuba Cultural Exchange as part of Cuba Cultural Days 2009, a series of events focused on Cuban visual and performing arts organized by the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, DC. See below for a full listing of activities.
 
The discussion will be moderated by James Early, Board member of US-Cuba Cultural Exchange and Director of Cultural Policy at theSmithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. The panelists will include :

Danny Glover – who along with James Early and Harry Belafonte recently returned from Cuba, where Glover was named honorary President of the Traveling Caribbean Film Festival and where, along with Belafonte, he participated in the inauguration of the Festival's Havana office.
 
Septime Webre – Cuban-American Artistic Director of the Washington Ballet since 1999, where his work has included extensive collaboration with counterparts in the Cuban world of ballet.
 
Hugo Medrano – Artistic Director of the GALA Hispanic Theatre in Washington, DC, a performing arts space with an extensive history of collaboration with Cuban theater and performing arts.
 
Peggy Cooper-Cafritz – Co-founder of the Duke Ellington School for the Arts and former chair of the DC Board of Education and former Executive Director of the DC Arts Council.
 
Mavis Anderson – Senior Associate at the Latin America Working Group whose work focuses on U.S. policy towards Cuba, and member of the Board of US-Cuba Cultural Exchange.
 
Eduardo Díaz – Executive Director of the Smithsonian Latino Centerwho has many of years of experience working with Cuban film and performing arts.
 
Curtis White – President of Allied Communications, Inc., providing data communication between the U.S. and Cuba, including tele-health and the online CubanRhythms NetRadio service.
 
According to USCCE's James Early, "We are celebrating Cuba Cultural Days in Washington in rec
ognition of the long history of Cuba-U.S. cultural interchange."
 
"There is great desire and readiness on the part of U.S. artists and communities to enlarge cultural exchanges with Cuban artists and the Cuban people," he said.
 
Viengsay Valdés, Prima Ballerina of the Cuban National Ballet, is the Cuban performing artist to enter the United States since 2003. Ms. Valdés will perform in the Washington Ballet's production of Don Quixote at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts October 14-18.
 
Valdés joins singer-songwriter Pablo Milanés, composer-conductorZenaida Romeu, and painter Juan Delgado Guerra as amongst the first Cuban artists to be issued visas by the U.S. State Department in six years. Delgado recently accompanied the exhibit Confluencias: Inside Arte Cubano Contemporáneo at its opening at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The exhibit runs through May 16, 2009.
 
 
"I would say that culture is the collection of knowledge which allows a man to establish relationships, beyond time and space, between two similar or analogous realities explaining one as a function of its similarities with the other which may have occurred many centuries ago." – Cuban Novelist and Musicologist Alejo Carpentier (December 26, 1904 – April 24, 1980)
 
 
Full Program of Events (All Washington, DC)
 
Thursday, 24th of September – 6:00-8:00pm
Opening of Exhibition of Cuban Painters "Cuba: The Island and its people"
Gallery "Andres Bello" at the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
1099 30th Street, NW

Friday, 25th of September – 7:30-9:00pm
Cuban Cultural Evening with a Master Class of Rumba ad Salsa(Instructor Aramis Pazos)
Cuban Interests Section
2630 16th Street, NW

Sunday, 27th of September – 6:30-8:00pm
Roundtable Discussion on US-Cuba Cultural Relations
GALA Hispanic Theater
3333 14th Street, NW

Friday, 23rd of October – 7:00-9:00pm
Cuban Cultural Evening with showing of film "Los Zafiros"
Cuban Interests Section
2630 16th Street, NW, Washington DC 20009
 
Thursday, 29th of October – 6:00-8:00pm
Closing of exhibition "Cuba: The Island and its people," with talk about the painters and their works
Gallery "Andres Bello" at the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
1099 30th Street, NW