The Minister of Culture and Sports, Stephen Lashley, presided over the cultural gala organized by the Embassy of Cuba and the National Cultural Foundation (FNC) to celebrate the 45th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic relations. With the presence of a delegation that traveled from Havana for the commemorative activities, chaired by comrade José Ramón Balaguer, member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the PCC and head of its Department of International Relations, Minister Lashley and the Cuban Ambassador, Francisco Fernández, opened the event that included the performance of local professional artists, as well as children and young Barbadians trained by Cuban professors in various manifestations of art and culture. The Minister highlighted the relevance of the date as well as the initiative to celebrate it with a cultural event that shows the symbiosis of Caribbean culture and identity, recognizing the value of Cuban cooperation in this and other spheres. For his part, the Ambassador identified the different spheres in which this cooperation materializes, and then he extolled the commitment shown by several Cuban specialists who managed to prepare in record time excellent performances by talented elementary school children and young people from secondary and university education demonstrating the richness and the mixture of the Caribbean art and art culture.
The classical ballet performances were performed by students of the Praise Dance Academy, under the guidance of the Cuban teacher Laura Álvarez, who in only 8 months of work achieved the spectacular assembly of classic pieces from the Cuban and international repertoire such as Sleeping Beauty, Guajira and the Swan Lake. Contemporary dance was present with university students of the Cuban resident professor Nery Torres, with 3 pieces of Afro-Cuban folklore. Primary children recited in Spanish several fragments of Simple Verses by José Martí's, guided by teacher Tania Dennis. In song’ sphere, young people of Hispanic languages of the University stood out with the interpretation of the piece Riding with Fidel and the Pre-university of Barbados with Hasta Siempre, dedicated to Che Guevara. The young professional artists Khalid Baston and Najumah Comissiong sang to the attributes of Caribbean sovereignty and self-determination, while the professional group Ridding Tribe, led by the choreographer Aisha Comissiong, delighted the audience with Afro-Caribbean dances. The event was closed by the Cuba Ensemble band, comprised of pre-university music students, with Cuban dance music assembled for the date, performed in Spanish.
The audience was able to enjoy Venezuelan commitment and solidarity with the Premiere of the documentary Faces of Pain, by the director Ernesto Segovia and the musicologist Alejandro Ali, who traveled especially to Barbados for this occasion. The work is a new attempt to collect testimonies from relatives of the victims and witnesses of the horrendous terrorist attack on the Cubana de Aviación plane that occurred on the coasts of Barbados on October 1976, in which 73 people were killed in the middle of an airplane. civil.