2023-09-02 16:29:38
The Cubans themselves are the ones who can best tell the life of those who took paths far from the Island. Under this premise, Cuban director Ricardo Bacallao devised and developed the documentary I Never Left: 6 Cuban Women Artists from New York, which premiered this week at the Cuban Cultural Center in New Yorkwith the history of women who cultivated their art nurtured by the roots of Cuba and for the cultural richness of the most populated city in the US
The documentary narrates the professional lives of the visual artist Gladys Triana, the pianist Juana Zayas, the poet Maya Islas, the actress and singer Olga Merediz, the composer and director Tania León and the dancer Aydmara Cabrera. Stories that not even the Cuban community knew and that now find common ground in the work of Bacallao.
“There are many Cubans who have been in the US for a long time and do not know the cultural richness that we have. I, for example, did not know Olga Merediz, an actress who has been very successful on television, but also in various Broadway musicals. The mission of this film is show the treasure that we Cubans have in the diaspora and tell our own story so that no one has to do it for us,” says the director in an interview with DIARIO DE CUBA.
Initially, Bacallao would only focus on the story of four women, but the Cuban Cultural Center in New York encouraged him to expand the number of protagonists to take advantage of the opportunity.
“My wife played a fundamental role in this project, she encouraged me and helped me at all times. Without a doubt, she is another of the protagonists of the documentary,” says the director, who lives in Berlin and for a long time in New York, “the city now or never.”
The filmmaker talks regarding the complexity of delving into such consolidated careers with a limited amount of time. “There are six documentaries in one, I had to find a way to make it entertaining, but not superficial.”
The six protagonists have managed to leave traces in different lines of art. visual artist Gladys Trianahas lived more than half of his life in New York, where he arrived in 1975. His work reflects the exile from Cuba and the search for a language to rebuild his home. Triana has been described as one of the most authentic and versatile Cuban artists of her generation.
The Pianist Juana Zayas he began playing by ear when he was just two years old. At four she read music and played four hands with her mother. Shortly following, she entered the Peyrellade Music Conservatory in Havana and gave his first solo recital, interpreting works by Lv Beethoven, George Frideric Handel y Frédéric Chopin. Zayas has performed throughout Europe, South America and the US, where he resides. The award-winning pianist is especially known for her exquisite interpretations of F. Chopin.
The Cuban composer and director Tania León is also the protagonist of the documentary. She began studying music at the age of four and has been the only Latina recognized by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for her lifetime artistic contribution. US President Joe Biden said in his tribute speech that the artist “became one of the most important classical composers and conductors of our time.” In 2021 León received the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his orchestral work Stride. The composer is co-founder of the Sounds of the Americas festival, of the American Composers Orchestra, and advisor to the New York Philharmonic.
For her part, the Cuban poet Maya Islas works at the New School University in New York, work that she combines with literary creation. Among her most important works are Sola, Desnuda… Sin Nombre, Sombras-Papel, and Altazora accompanying Vicente. She has been awarded for several of her works. In 1986 she was a finalist for the Letras de Oro Award and in 1993 she was awarded the Latino Literature Prize.
The actress and singer Ola Merediz She is best known for her role as “Grandma Claudia” in the Broadway musical In the Heights, for which she received a Tony Award nomination for Best Female Performance. Merediz has worked in renowned productions such as Diary of a Future President, New Amsterdam, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Orange Is the New Blackamong other.
Aydmara Cabrera, another of the protagonists of the Bacallao documentary, began studying dance at the age of nine at the National Ballet School of Havana and she became prima ballerina of the National Ballet of Cuba, under the direction of Alicia Alonso. Cabrera has danced at international ballet festivals throughout the world, playing leading roles with the National Ballet of Cuba and the New York Hispanic Ballet. Cabrera is the director of the Princeton Ballet Schoolthe official school of the American Repertory Ballet in Princeton, New Jersey.
Ricardo Bacallao, known for films like Mondongo cubano and Bebo, says she has learned a lot by studying the lives of these women. The filmmaker, who confesses that he does not see his works too much following releasing them “for fear of changing everything,” is already working on his next projects, both related to Cuba.
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