Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25040
Cuba � \. � ,- .,:, • 1_' ... . '. ""' .'- < Instinto Any time our cameras and gringo-esque behavior draws attention, we're usually told about a woman named Lizette Vila. Curious, we set out to meet her. Vila turns out to be a one-woman passion play: all soul and wielding the energy, personal ity and courage to communicate her. sentiments and ideas despite Cuba's restrictive economic and politica l climates. When not representing Cuba on political and feminist matters abroad, Lizette directs a weekly Cuban television series that profiles individual women and illustrates her own credo: All women are stars. Composed of three hip-swaying, self-possessed chicas in their early twenties, Instinto is Cuba's answer to rap. We fi rst see Iramis, Dori and Janet performing "Nuestro Vino" (Our Wine) at a club and then, for our camera on the streets of Havana. Their on-the-spot choreography draws inspired crowds of young schoolgirls and makes short order of half an acre of cobblestone. Instinto definitely lives up to their name: "We take the North American influences of hip-hop, soul, rap and put it together with our roots, which are salsa, rubancora, rumba. Then we sing. "We have beautiful voices, no?" We hear about a Santeria priestess-a santera-who lives in the small town of Cardenas and decide to head out of Havana for the countryside. As a young woman, Emelia Mechado served as a ful l-time Communist party official. Then illness and a spiritual calling led her to decide to leave the party to devote herself to her faith, and to healing and advising others-which was risky business in those rigidly secular days in Cuba's history. Emel ia's ritual and trance offer us a glimpse into the sacred and secret practices of Santeria, a traditional African/Yorubic re ligion brought to the Americas by slaves. While bookstore hopping in Matanzas-the renaissance city of Cuba's literary scene-we find out that one of Cuba's acclaimed poets lives just down the street. Carilda Oliver Labra made a name for herself in the early 50s with her highly sensual poetry, and is apparently still well-versed in the Cuban notion of love. A woman of indeterminate age (she is probably in her 70s), we suspected she was a Diva when we spotted her 30-something husband. Ah, but that is to take Carilda too lightly. She reads us a poem about exi le, and the bitter-sweet emotional territory that comes with separation from her family, all of whom have left Cuba, many to settle in the United States. When we're not chasing down Divas we are settling into Cuban culture through accepting the "manana" pace, channeling the spirit of Hemingway, catching large-mouthed bass, and trying to master salsa's tricky seven beat. -Holly Morris 39