On Saturday June 11th, the whole day will be dedicated to contemporary Cuban art and culture at Bozar in Brussels. ”Back to the roots” is the theme of this new edition of CubaLandz, which is dedicated to Cuban culture in all its artistic forms (music, dance, plastic arts, literature, cinema, etc.). A welcome return to the essential, to nature, to spirituality, after two years of pandemic.
The program, rich in Afro-Cuban percussion, ancestral songs and indigenous sounds, focuses on the one side on the history and the origins of the island and celebrates on the other side a most exciting modernity. A day of festivities and art in every sense, with artists from every corner of the world.
1. Congas Masterclass by Yaroldy Abreu Robles
Yaroldy is an imaginative and expressive percussionist with great technical virtuosity. He is one of the many talents from the new generation of Cuban experts in rhythms of French-Haitian origin and knowledge of Afro-Cuban folklore. He is very well known in percussion in Belgium, and stands out through his genius and mastery.
He radiates vitality and joy and his hands seem to fly yet at the same time caress the drums, with a magical and contagious effect on those who listen to him. He is currently one of the members of Maestro Chucho Valdés’ quintet and El Comité. With this masterclass, Yaroldy offers the opportunity to discover and learn from his percussion talents.
11 June 2022 at 2:00 PM
2. Sigba la girafe: A musical fairytale in the great tradition of African storytelling
“One very windy day, hunters from far away countries came to the savannah and captured the entire herd of giraffes. Only Sigba, the little giraffe with the tiny neck, escaped the hunters’ traps. Despite the teachings of the wise Elephant who took her in, Sigba does not want to learn to observe nature and find out the good acacia leaves so she can feed herself well and make her neck grow.”
A musical fairytale in the great traditon of african storytelling, for young and old.
Fatima Tchiombiano story teller
Fabienne Van Den Driessche cello
Béatrice Princelle text
Charlotte Fallon director
11 June 2022 at 3:00 PM
3. Nosotros la música: A historical documentary on Cuban music
In 1964, Cuban artistic culture, and especially musical culture, experienced intense development in all its manifestations. The documentary “Nosotros la música” (Rogelio París, 1964) brings together and reflects the most significant and transcendent personalities and musical genres in the history of Cuban popular music, with a bold formal language that allows it to appear today as a historical document of primary importance. This film highlights the most essential characteristics of the Cuban identity, in the context of the great popular music that is on the international scene today more than ever.
11 June 2022 at 6:00 PM
4. Meet the Writer: Víctor Rodríguez Núñez
We might call him one of the greatest Cuban poets still living. Víctor Rodríguez Núñez has already published seventeen collections of poetry, all of which have received awards and been republished and translated into numerous languages. At Bozar, he will present Ceniza de Infinito (1979-2018) (The Infinite’s Ash) an anthology of his poetry.
Víctor Rodríguez Núñez (Havana, Cuba, 1955) is a poet, journalist, essayist, translator and teacher. As a poet, he has been a guest at literary events in over 40 countries. In the 1980s, he was an editorial board member and later editor-in-chief of the high-profile Cuban literary journal El Caimán Barbudo, in which he published numerous contributions on literature and film. In addition to three anthologies portraying his own generation of poets, he is also the author of the standard work La Poesía del siglo XX en Cuba.
Rodríguez Núñez will be interviewed by Nicky Aerts.
11 June’22 – 16:30
5. The Way Beyond: The cultural heritage of Cuba in photos
A Cuban artist based in Belgium, Jorge Luis Álvarez Pupo conceives of art as an ongoing process, an eternal quest for oneself, one’s identity and one’s roots. Coming from a Haitian community taken to Cuba in the time of slavery, he inherited the respect for ancestors and oral traditions specific to West African cultures.
In The Way Beyond, he draws on the body language of ceremonial dances to create his own imaginary and metaphorical visual world. This world-renowned artist has exhibited his works in Paris, Madrid, Bamako and New York, and some are in the collections of the Pinacoteca do Estado São Paulo and the Albertina in Vienna. During the CubaLandz festival, discover his photographs which are both personal in their cultural references, and universal in their depth and the questions which animate them.
11 June 2022 at 6:00 PM
6. Cuba and her Rumba
Rumba is a genre of music and dance that originated in Cuba in the 19th century. It is a traditional folklore event, as well as a lively and festive expression of social connection. In November 2016, UNESCO included Cuban rumba, a festive blend of dance and music, and all the cultural practices that stem from it, on the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The members of the associations Moyubao – promotion of Afro-Cuban culture in Belgium, in collaboration with CAMINA – School of dance and social artistry and other invited Cuban artists, will present a multi-coloured show with the energy and atmosphere of Cuban “solares”.
11 June 2022 at 6:00 PM
7. Omar Sosa & Seckou Keita – “Suba”
In 2018, Cuban musician Omar Sosa stepped onto the stage at Bozar with a candle in his hand. Placing it on his piano as if performing a ritual, he set the atmosphere that would linger throughout the musical evening and the encounter with his loyal partner, Senegalese griot Seckou Keita.
After Transparent Water (2017), the two virtuosos and poets of sound will present Suba (“dawn” in Malinke), their new album recorded during the pandemic: a hymn to hope and a profound reiteration of humanity’s eternal prayer for peace and world unity. On stage, the two masters are joined by their mutual partner, outstanding Venezuelan percussionist Gustavo Ovalles. Experience this vibrant human and musical reunion, and discover their ethereal and bewitching universe, at the crossroads of Afro-Cuban, Mandingo and jazz music.
Omar Sosa fender rhodes, piano
Seckou Keita kora, vocals
Gustavo Ovalles percussion
11 June 2022 at 8:30 PM
8. Ariwo – “Quasi”
Ariwo literally means “noise” in Yoruba. This four-piece band chose the name because they combine traditional rhythms and electro in their live performances to produce a unique sound – a sound that constantly challenges the perception of ancestral music, in a quest exploring different cultures from across the globe. The result is a mix of tradition and contemporary electro that takes you on a journey through a simmering and hypnotising soundscape. Following appearances at the Barbican in London and at the Fusion Festival in Berlin, they will now be showcasing their latest album Quasi on stage at BOZAR.
Pouya Ehsaei composition, electronics
Hammadi Rencurrell Valdes drums, percussion
Oreste “Sambroso” Noda congas
Regis Molina saxophone
Sam Warner trumpet
Matteo Musetti sound engineer
11 and 12 June 2022 at 11:00 PM
9. DJ Rafael Aragon
Rafael Aragon aka Rafiralfiro is a DJ/producer musically rooted in Arab and Latin cultures, having grown up in a cosmopolitan world in the Paris suburbs. At the age of 20 he started producing beats, obsessed with the idea of combining folk music with more electronic rhythms and creating a balance between organic and synthetic.
A jack-of-all-trades, he then composed soundtracks for films and documentaries, instrumentals for rappers and performed live. He carries the notion of travel at the heart of his artistic projects, and his music evolves between latintronics, oriental bass and electronica with Balkan and African accents.
11 June 2022 at 8:30 PM and 12:30 AM
