Centro de Estudios del Caribe

HAVANA.- From Mackandal to Bob Marley, from La Lupe to Afro-Caribbean orishas, the myths of the Caribbean are an essential part of a way of life only possible in this region, where magic and reality come together in the presence of all the world’s races.

In this context, over a period of five days researchers and artists from about 10 countries explored the Caribbean essence through the discussion of interesting papers and diverse art forms, all part of the Myths of the Caribbean colloquium held at Casa de las Américas [but organized by the Centro de Estudios del Caribe - AfroCubaWeb].

The participants, from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Argentina, the United Kingdom, Colombia, France, the United States and Cuba, examined the Caribbean character forged over five centuries through the most intense racial mixture known, and involving peoples from almost every region on earth.

Even many of the most rigorous academic papers explored the carnival spirit linked to this region’s culture, in which popular manifestations have entered into the highest artistic expressions, although many have tried to deny this fact.

"We must assume myths with a creative, or rather Caribbean spirit," stated Cuban researcher Rogelio Martínez Furé, a respected scholar of Afro-Cuban culture, who gave the closing speech at the event, with some rather unexpected features.

Amidst invocations chanted to Afro-Caribbean deities, rhythms beat out on a table and even an Arabic prayer to Allah, Martínez Furé insisted, "Myth moves through all our universes, revealing itself only to the initiated minds. They are the source of a unique identity."

But the same orator conceded the elusive nature of myths, recognizing that "they always elude us, like puffs of smoke from a Caribbean cigar."

Nonetheless, the colloquium did try to contain them momentarily, in an effort to "determine how myths are created, modified and sustained," covering subjects such as the creation and destruction of myths in literature, the visual arts and contemporary theater. To reinforce these concepts, installations featuring Yoruba painting and engraving were displayed, reflecting the legends propagated by native Caribbean peoples and African slaves, as well as the frankly kitsch visions of the Caribbean reality which have become an artistic category in the best tradition of Pedro Almodovar.

José Castillo, a Dominican visual artist who presented a series of paintings on reality and fantasy, told Prensa Latina that in the Caribbean "myths are even utilized to defeat other myths. That is what some of us artists are trying to do when we recreate visions stemming from racial mixture, refuting the false myth of a whitened version of society, which they are trying to sell us in countries like mine."

Cuban dramatist Gerardo Fulleda León, also in conversation with this agency, praised the capacity of popular myth to transcend epochs and circumstances in his description of the central character of his play Remolino en Las Aguas (Whirlpool), presented within the framework of the event. The play deals with the presence over time of La Lupe, the controversial Cuban singer.

La Lupe, to whom Spanish director Pedro Almodovar furnished a cinematic comeback after her early death, is the center of Fulleda’s work, based on the Racine’s Phèdre, in which death falls in love with the protagonist.

Gloria Rolando’s El alacrán, dealing with one of the oldest Cuban carnival dance groups, was presented on videotape. The books launched were Raúl Martínez’s Benny Moré, about another mythical figure in Cuban popular music, and Cuban journalist Laciel Zamora’s El culto de San Lázaro en Cuba (The Cult of San Lázaro in Cuba), about Cuba’s most venerated saint.