RUMBA IN CENTRAL HAVANA

SYNOPSIS

The project Rumba in Central Havana was born in the heat of the development of the urban rehabilitation of Cayo Hueso, part of the municipality of Central Havana. After two years of covering the biggest residential rehabilitation project executed in Cuba, we proposed to the Municipality the production of an audio-visual series about Rumba. The series aimed to recover the historical roots, which link the Rumba to Central Havana, to rescue urban folklore and to dignify the Rumba tradition, thereby publicising the cultural patrimony of this important municipality. For Cubans, this musical expression has always represented the spirit of rebellion, African ancestral faith and the connection between the daily world and the forces that guide the universe.

... it is a normal Saturday, on a corner in the neighbourhood of Cayo Hueso. We discover a group of youth, authentic masters of the genre: Ache Iya. Together we plan the Trilogy which, three months later, we are editing. Thus, Seeing from the Heart and My Solar are born. The third piece remained unfinished. We hope to return to Cuba some day; among other things, to complete this project which marked our appreciation of the roots of this continent's music.

In Seeing from the Heart we proposed to go beyond the barrier of time, to disorient ourselves in order to discover and stop in a more real world. How? ... How it is possible to measure what we are today without measuring what we were? How de we separate the paradigms from the daily reality of loving? How it is possible to put reins on that love? How it is possible that the colour of our skin can blind our intelligence and limit our capacity to love? And the music... what is music in our collective memory? And the neighbourhood?... an extended womb? ...the natural environment of our tribe.

She is a young girl. Her passion is dance. She falls in love with a boy whose social and ethnic status is an impediment to the concretion of that love. He is blindly in love with her, and in his blindness he losses his life. His father is a patriarch who represents the regressive forces of humanity, and is opposed to the relationship. She ends offering herself to the sea, in search of their love in other dimension... and they find each other again, in the streets of Central Havana. The drums and the verses of Ache Iya have made possible this love.

Seeing from the Heart is an audio-visual invitation to observe the universe that surrounds us from a multifaceted perspective. It is as if our eyes and the eyes of our forebears review a memory from the collective subconscious... a memory that is projected on a gigantic screen in the interior of ourselves. Seeing from the Heart is more than a video clip, it is a call to listen to our own music, to relate to our own environment and to look at each other beyond our skin colour... more precisely, to look from the heart.

My Solar is a passionate homage to Mercedes Valdés, one of the most important investigators and masters of Cuban urban folklore, and in particular, of the Rumba in Cuba. But in addition, My Solar is a passionate cry, protest against the forgetfulness and abandonment of the rumba tradition, and the symbols that represent it. The setting is an ancient solar (rooming house) called El Capitolio (The Capitol). This is the birthplace of Mercedes Valdés, today on the verge of collapse and without even a plaque to mark its historical importance. The plot is the daily life of the personalities - living or remembered - who naggingly wander the streets and rooming houses of Havana. This mix of ghosts and the living, of tributes and joys, transport us to a time when only the sound and the sensual are important. If we let them take us, if we permit that these spirits, or Mercedes, guide us along the intricate corridors, we can begin to understand the essence of our first form of communication with the universe: music.

Central Havana is a courtyard well suited to the development of a project of this dimension. It is a human garden, shaded in magic and development, which has for centuries housed both today's urban drum rhythms and the ageless naturalness of forbidden love. Ache Iya is a group of young musicians, heirs of that collective memory, bearers of a profound investigative passion, strict performers of their own creative concepts, forever in love with life. Those of us who participated in this project carry the responsibility of an impassioned response to the rhythm of the drums, a rhythm which commands us to carry on, looking from the heart.

We thank the General Assembly of the Municipality of Central Havana for its confidence, the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television for its support, the Cuban History Institute for its contribution, the hundreds of sisters and brothers who participated in the accomplishment of this dream... and lastly, all those who willingly lent us their lives to be recreated on a screen.

This video was produced by GRYPHON MEDIA PRODUCTIONS, known in Cuba as GRYPHON productions.