Special Events

Cultural Events

February

International Book Fair
Dates: February 9th to 19th
Description: Opportunity to participate and exchange for professionals and entities associated with the World of Books, including publishers, authors, editors, distributors, librarians, agents, multimedia producers, journalists, etc; and also the ideal opportunity to meet with the Cuban readers. This year, will be dedicated to Canada.
Venues: Moro-Cabaña Fortress, Cultural Institutions of Plaza Municipality in Havana, as well as the Capital Cities of every Cuban Province.

XI International Symposyum “Challenges in the Managment of Cities”
Dates: February 21st to 15th
Description: The City of Camaguey, World Heritage Site, is the stage for this Event that convene professionals in the fields of architecture, urbanism, sociology, economy and other areas related to historical cities. Topics like management of cities, planning, design and implementation will be featured.
Venues: Convention Centre of Santa Cecilia, in the Historical Center of Camaguey

March

International Documentary Festival “Santiago Alvarez in Memoriam”
Dates: March 6th to 12th
Description: The documentary constitutes a people’s weapon for denunciation. This Event addresses topics like the Documentary today, the aesthetics in the documentary, importance of the sound track, among others.
This edition will be dedicated to the African Documentary.
Venues: Movie Theaters of Santiago de Cuba, Guantánamo, Granma, Las Tunas and Camaguey; main venues being Cuba and Rialto Movie Theaters in Santiago de Cuba.

XVI International Drum Festival “Guillermo Barreto in Memoriam”
Dates: March 7th to 12th
Description: The Event summons important percussionists and musicians from Cuba and beyond, as well as the most prestigious Cuban Popular Music Bands, Dance Companies, Jazz Bands and Folklore Groups. It also features two International Contests: Casino Dance and Percussion, both available for general public, all nationality, all ages.
Venues: Mella Theater, Karl Marx Theater, Avenida Hall, La Tropical’s Pink Ballroom and Mella Theater’s Garndens.

VI Cuban Congress of Local Development
Dates: March 28th to 30th
Description: The University of Granma summons professionals, researchers, students and entrepreneurs to the 6th edition of an Event that features Master Classes and panels designed to update about the state of the art of the various scientific areas associated with the Local Development; while enabling opportunities for exchanges on the field of research and technological innovation.
Venues: Sierra Maestra Hotel in Bayamo, Granma.

International Meeting of Danzón Dancers (Danzoneros) “Miguel Failde in Memoriam”
Dates: March 29th to April 2nd
Description: The Danzón, designated as a Cuban Nation Immaterial Heritage since 2013, has been recognized as an expression of the Cuban identity. This Event summons composers, musicologists and researchers, performers and dancers, who have contributed to enrich the legacy of this genre both from a traditional and a contemporary, revitalizing perspective. Master classes, concerts, theoretical events, meetings of Orchestra Directors, workshops, and contests on dance and composition will be featured in this edition.
Venues: Theaters and Plazas of the City of Matanzas

April

XVI Cuban Institute of Film Art and Industry’s Young Showcase
Dates: April 4th to 9th
Description: This event features films by young Cuban filmmakers, theoretical panels, debates and seminars. Being its raison d’être to promote the young talent, there is also contests, workshops with prominent Cuban filmmakers and exhibitions.
Venues: Chaplin and “23 y 12” Movie Theaters, Havana

VII Camaguey Video-art International Festival
Dates: April 4th to 9th
Description: This Event covers all the generic modalities of the Video-Art, including audiovisual codes of the digital film, video performance, contemporary theater, electro-acoustic music, sound image, art, science and technology en social communication, art in urban spaces and visual art in architecture.
Venues: Historical Centre of Camaguey

XXIII International Meeting of Ballet Academies and XIII Contest of Young Dancers
Dates: April 9th to 16th
Description: This event will feature exchanges between specialists, professors, students and dancers of all continents aimed at promoting and developing the education of Ballet. Will also include Master Classes, workshops about repertoire, classic duo, techniques, folklore dances and kinesiology applied to dance; lectures about the development and perspectives of the education of Ballet, methodology, challenges and vision of the Cuban Ballet School; workshops about the critic in the classic dance and the art of dancing in general; and there will also be artistic presentations by the attending academies.
Venues: Havana Great Theater Alicia Alonso and the National Ballet School of Havana.

“Casa de las Américas” Composition Contest
Dates: April 10th to 14th
Description: The Event aims at stimulating and promoting the most recent creations in Symphonic, Chamber and Choir music in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Venues: Casa de las Américas. Havana

XIII Gibara International Low-Budget Film Festival
Dates: April 19th to 23th
Description: This Event makes a case for a film industry with low budget, but with high ethic and artistic values; intending to offer alternative and emancipated products, free of mercantilist concepts that contribute to the disalienation of the viewer.
Features contests on various categories, demonstrations by national and international institutions, workshops, exhibitions and debates that include the topic of the traditions of the people of Gibara.
Venues: Gibara, Holguin.

II International Colloquium of Historians “History, Culture and National Sovereignty”
Dates: April 24th to 26th
Description: This Event enables discussions about history, culture and national sovereignty, addressing present problems of historiography and history writing, vision on present processes in Latin-America, Cuba and worldwide from the contemporary historiography. Other topics include “Our America and the other America: History and Contemporaneity”, “Our America: Independence and Revolution”; Science, Technology and Environment in the historiography; and “The Education of History. Theoretical and Methodological Problems”.
Venues: Havana

May

XXII International Festival “Romerías de Mayo”
Dates: May 2nd to 8th
Description: This event turns the City of Holguin, the “City of the Parks” into the “Capital of Young Art”, enabling the meeting of various generations of artist, intellectuals and cultural promoters of tens of counties. Features concerts and exhibitions, intended to stimulate social reflection and the enjoyment of the art.
This edition will have as central topics Regional Cultures, Generational Encounters, L’avant garde of the Young Art, and the “Tradition and Modernity”.
Venues: Holguin

International Festival “Cubadisco 2017”
Dates: May 14th to 21st
Description: Since its foundation, Cubadisco has created spaces for reflection and debate by music theorists, creators and executives, through colloquiums and symposiums about topics like the music creation and education, the music industry and the cultural heritage. It has enabled exchanges and collaborations that have contributed considerably to the development of the Cuban discography industry.
This Event feature presentations of audiovisual works, specialized visits, expositions, concerts by prominent musicians from Cuba and abroad, and the conferment of the Cubadisco Awards.
This edition will be dedicated to France.
Venues: National Theater, Karl Marx Theater, Avenida Hall and “Casa del Alba Cultural”

XXVII Spanish Footprint Festival
Dates: May 28th to June 4th
Description: This festival convokes dance, music, plastic arts, literature, theater, cinema, and feature lectures about the presence in the Cuban culture of the Spanish roots, as well as the traditions and cultural life of the Spanish communities. This edition of the Festival will be dedicated to Canarias Islands.
Venues: National Theater. Havana.

June

XVI International Colloquium Ernst Hemingway
Dates: June 15th to 18th
Description: This Event takes place in the Ernst Hemingway Museum, in the “Finca Vigía”, located in the Havana neighborhood San Francisco de Paula, where the author wrote his book “The Old and the Sea” which earned him a Pulitzer Prize in 1953, a year before of him being awarded with the Nobel Prize of Literature. Hemingway had a deep emotional relation with Cuba, since 1928, when he visited the island for the first time.
Venues: Hemingway Museum, Finca Vigía, Havana.

VII Travelling Caribbean Film Itinerant Showcase
Dates: June 15th to 18th
Description: Regional event for a wider knowledge and mutual recognition of the Caribbean identities and cultures, diffused by visions that reach beyond stereotypes imposed by the hegemonic centers of AV production, often ignoring the cultural wealth and diversity of our peoples.
The Showcase is devoted to the preservation of the audiovisual memoir of the Caribbean in all its diversity. It offers an opportunity to learn and assess the achievements of the Caribbean film industry.
Features debates, updates and spaces for exchange and collaboration, as well as exhibition of films from the English, French and Spanish speaking Caribbean.
Venues: Havana

July

XXXVII Caribbean Festival “Fire Feast”
Dates: July 3rd to 9th
Description: This event showcases cultural, scientific and literary relevant works of the people of the Caribbean. Features “Grupos Portadores”, groups of people that bear and cultivate the popular tradition of Cuba and the Caribbean; and put together a theoretical event titled “The Caribbean that unites us”.
Venues: Santiago de Cuba

International Festival of Salsa Dancers “Varadero Baila”
Dates: July 7th to 11th
Description: Special occasion to combine Salsa Dance with Sun and Beach. The program includes Salsa workshops, as well as lessons of Mambo, Cha Cha Cha, Rumba and Son, imparted by prestigious professors from the Superior Arts Institute of Cuba, famous foreign International Salsa Academies and the ABC International Academy of Varadero.
Also featured are daily entertainment activities, dance in beach and pool areas for adults during the afternoons , special sessions for kids, and performances by Cuban Popular Music Bands at night.
Venues: Varadero

September

Habanarte
Dates: September 8th to 18th
Description: Multidisciplinary event that showcases the most relevant Cuban art works in the most varied fields.
Features presentations by prominent “Trova” and Salsa Bands, flocklore and contemporary dance Companies, the National Ballet of Cuba and plastic art exhibitions.
Venues: Theaters and cultural institutions, Havana.

International meeting “The preservation of the documental heritage in the Spanish America: experiences and challenges “
Dates: September 26th to 29th
Description: This event will address topics like the management for the preservation of documental heritage, control of the biological deterioration, risk management, book architecture and restoration, digitalization of the heritage, access to digitalized information and digital preservation.
Venues: National Library. Havana

October

Spanish American Culture Festival
Dates: October 24th to 30th
Description: This Event promotes the Hispanic roots in the Cuban culture. The streets and parks of the City of Holguin stage a ample program of concerts, exhibitions, workshops and popular festivities, featuring prominent singers, creators and popular music bands from Cuba and abroad.
This edition will be dedicated to Cuban thinking, regional cultures, environment and sustainable development, gender approach, and cultural policies and promotion.
Venues: “Casa Iberoamericana”, streets and parks, Holguin.

International Reading Congress. 2017
Dates: October 24th to 28th
Description: Inspired in José Martí thoughts, this event will feature a debate about the habit of reading as a reflexive and emotional act, capable of effectively and comprehensively impact the multifaceted relations of the people with universe.
Venues: Tryp Habana Libre Hotel. Havana

XVII Havana Theater Festival
Dates: October 20th to 29th
Description: This is an event create an space where all the tendencies of the contemporary dramatic art converge. It will showcase relevant Cuban and International theatrical works, spectacles, workshops, seminars and lectures by prestigious specialist, as well as debates by artist, critics and the public.
Venues: Theaters and Plazas. Havana.

November

XII World Meeting of Dancers and Academies of Salsa and Casino “Baila en Cuba 2017”
Dates: November 19th to 24th
Description: Baila en Cuba will feature a very ample program that includes dance lessons on the various genres of Cuban music, night concerts by prestigious Casino and Salsa bands; and also its traditional extension to Varadero.
Venues: Havana

Santiago de Cuba International Choir Festival
Dates: November 29th to December 3rd.
Description: Considered the Choral Singing Feast, this Event features performances by the attendant choirs in the most important Concert Halls of the city of Santiago de Cuba, as well as exchanges by singers and directors about their experience in the interpretation of the Cuban and International choral repertoire.
Venues: “Dolores” Concert Hall, Conservatorium “Casa Azul”, “Elvira Cape” Library, Santiago de Cuba Choir Headquarters and the City Hall of Santiago de Cuba.

December

XXII Guantanamera Festival
Dates: December 1st to 4th
Description: This is the most comprehensive cultural event taking place in the province of Gantanamo, one that features scientific and theoretical activities by cultural institutions, intended to promote the local and national cultural values.
Venues: Guantanamo

International Craftsmanship Fair “Fiart 2017”
Dates: December 1st to 17th
Description: This event enables multiples spaces for the promotion of the work of artists and craftsmen from Cuba and abroad, specially from Latin America, as well as the exchange of experiences between the creators and the public. This edition will feature fashion parades, exhibitions, sales events, workshops and panels about the development and the commercialization of the Visual Arts and the Craftsmanship.
Venues: Pabexpo. Havana

XXXVIII International Festival of the New Latin American Cinema
Dates: December 1st to 11th
Description: The Festival promotes and awards those works whose significance and artistic values contribute to enrich and reaffirm the Latin American and Caribbean cultural identity. Each year the Festival calls for entries to the competitions in Fiction, Documentary, Animation, Opera Prima, Unproduced Script, Poster and Postproduction. Besides that, the programme includes a showcase of contemporary world cinema, the Industry Sector initiatives as well as meetings and seminars on issues of cultural interest, especially cinema
Venues: National Hotel, “Pabellón Cuba”, Movie Theaters throughout the Island.

XXXIII Jazz Plaza International Festival
Dates: December 14th to 17th
Description: This festival convene dance, music, plastic arts, literature, theater, cinema, and feature lectures about the presence in the Cuban culture of the Spanish roots, as well as the traditions and cultural life of the Spanish communities. This edition of the Festival will be dedicated to Canarias Islands.
Venues: Mella Theater, Mella Thearter Gardens, “Casa de la Cultura” (House of the Culture) of Plaza, Havana.

2017 DANCE EVENTS

XVI International Drum Festival “Guillermo Barreto in Memoriam”
Dates: March 7th to 12th
Description: The Event summons important percussionists and musicians from Cuba and beyond, as well as the most prestigious Cuban Popular Music Bands, Dance Companies, Jazz Bands and Folklore Groups. It also features two International Contests: Casino Dance and Percussion, both available for general public, all nationality, all ages.
Venues: Mella Theater, Karl Marx Theater, Avenida Hall, La Tropical’s Pink Ballroom and Mella Theater’s Garndens.

International Meeting of Danzón Dancers (Danzoneros) “Miguel Failde in Memoriam”
Dates: March 29th to April 2nd
Description: The Danzón, designated as a Cuban Nation Immaterial Heritage since 2013, has been recognized as an expression of the Cuban identity. This Event summons composers, musicologists and researchers, performers and dancers, who have contributed to enrich the legacy of this genre both from a traditional and a contemporary, revitalizing perspective. Master classes, concerts, theoretical events, meetings of Orchestra Directors, workshops, and contests on dance and composition will be featured in this edition.
Venues: Theaters and Plazas of the City of Matanzas

XXIII International Meeting of Ballet Academies and XIII Contest of Young Dancers
Dates: April 9th to 16th
Description: This event will feature exchanges between specialists, professors, students and dancers of all continents aimed at promoting and developing the education of Ballet. Will also include Master Classes, workshops about repertoire, classic duo, techniques, folklore dances and kinesiology applied to dance; lectures about the development and perspectives of the education of Ballet, methodology, challenges and vision of the Cuban Ballet School; workshops about the critic in the classic dance and the art of dancing in general; and there will also be artistic presentations by the attending academies.
Venues: Havana Great Theater Alicia Alonso and the National Ballet School of Havana.

XXVII Spanish Footprint Festival
Dates: May 28th to June 4th
Description: This festival convokes dance, music, plastic arts, literature, theater, cinema, and feature lectures about the presence in the Cuban culture of the Spanish roots, as well as the traditions and cultural life of the Spanish communities. This edition of the Festival will be dedicated to Canarias Islands.
Venues: National Theater. Havana.

International Festival of Salsa Dancers “Varadero Baila”
Dates: July 7th to 11th
Description: Special occasion to combine Salsa Dance with Sun and Beach. The program includes Salsa workshops, as well as lessons of Mambo, Cha Cha Cha, Rumba and Son, imparted by prestigious professors from the Superior Arts Institute of Cuba, famous foreign International Salsa Academies and the ABC International Academy of Varadero. Also featured are daily entertainment activities, dance in beach and pool areas for adults during the afternoons , special sessions for kids, and performances by Cuban Popular Music Bands at night.
Venues: Varadero*

XII World Meeting of Dancers and Academies of Salsa and Casino “Baila en Cuba 2017”
Dates: November 19th to 24th
Description: Baila en Cuba will feature a very ample program that includes dance lessons on the various genres of Cuban music, night concerts by prestigious Casino and Salsa bands; and also its traditional extension to Varadero.
Venues: Havana*

2017 MUSIC EVENTS

“Casa de las Américas” Composition Contest
Dates: April 10th to 14th
Description: The Event aims at stimulating and promoting the most recent creations in Symphonic, Chamber and Choir music in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Venues: Casa de las Américas. Havana

International Festival “Cubadisco 2017”
Dates: May 14th to 21st
Description: Since its foundation, Cubadisco has created spaces for reflection and debate by music theorists, creators and executives, through colloquiums and symposiums about topics like the music creation and education, the music industry and the cultural heritage. It has enabled exchanges and collaborations that have contributed considerably to the development of the Cuban discography industry. This Event feature presentations of audiovisual works, specialized visits, expositions, concerts by prominent musicians from Cuba and abroad, and the conferment of the Cubadisco Awards. This edition will be dedicated to France.
Venues: National Theater, Karl Marx Theater, Avenida Hall and “Casa del Alba Cultural”

Santiago de Cuba International Choir Festival
Dates: November 29th to December 3rd.
Description: Considered the Choral Singing Feast, this Event features performances by the attendant choirs in the most important Concert Halls of the city of Santiago de Cuba, as well as exchanges by singers and directors about their experience in the interpretation of the Cuban and International choral repertoire.
Venues: “Dolores” Concert Hall, Conservatorium “Casa Azul”, “Elvira Cape” Library, Santiago de Cuba Choir Headquarters and the City Hall of Santiago de Cuba.

XXXIII Jazz Plaza International Festival
Dates: December 14th to 17th
Description: This festival convene dance, music, plastic arts, literature, theater, cinema, and feature lectures about the presence in the Cuban culture of the Spanish roots, as well as the traditions and cultural life of the Spanish communities. This edition of the Festival will be dedicated to Canarias Islands.
Venues: Mella Theater, Mella Thearter Gardens, “Casa de la Cultura” (House of the Culture) of Plaza, Havana.