Mayo

LATIN-AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN THEATER SEASON MAYO TEATRAL 
May, 9^th to 18^th
Organizer: Casa de las Americas.
Venue: Casa de las Americas.
Organizing Committee: Mss. Vivian Martinez Tabares
Casa de las Americas calls the 7^th Edition of Latin-American and Caribbean Theatre Season Mayo Teatral, a season of confrontation between Latin-American and Caribbean theatres with presentations of important artists of this artistic expression. At the same time, workshops and conferences will be held.

CUBADISCO 2008 INTERNATIONAL FAIR
May 17th to 25th
Organizer: Cuban Institute of  Music
Venue: Pabellon Cuba, Havana.
Organizing Committee: Sr. Ciro Benemelis
CUBADISCO 2008 comes once again with the slogan: MUSIC, IMAGE AND SOUND, on this occasion dedicated to Africa. From its very foundation, through colloquiums and symposiums, the CUBADISCO Fairs have created spaces for reflection and debates for theoreticians, creators and music executives where they can discuss different topics regarding the musical industry in order to promote exchanges, cooperation and knowledge, and therefore, to contribute to the widest and most efficient development of the Cuban discographic industry. 

WEMILERE FESTIVAL OF AFRICAN ROOTS
May, 25^th to 31^st
Organizer: Provincial Management Office of Culture and Guanabacoa s Municipal Management Office of Culture. 
Venue: Guanabacoa, Havana
In the Village of Asuncion de Guanabacoa ,a place that holds in its narrows streets a lot of history and centennial folkloric traditions ,very near downtown Havana, Wemilere, a  Festival of African roots is held. This Festival offers a wide range of activities from academic sessions including a colloquium and teaching cultural meetings up to tours around places of historic interest as well as a varied artistic program. This edition of the Festival is dedicated to ECOGUA (The Economic Community of Eastern African States). To attend Wemilere represents finding centennial folkloric traditions inherited from African-Spanish cultural fusion and is also walking through a place where roots tell tales.

INTERNATIONAL COLLOQUIUM CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN THE CARIBBEAN
May, 26^th to 31^st
Organizer: Casa de las Americas
Venue: Havana
Casa de las Americas, through its Centre for Caribbean studies has the pleasure to invite you to participate in this Colloquium Cultural Diversity in the Caribbean. In this edition the event will be about the immaterial patrimony, religion, oral speech, pop art and cultural routes. This event should favour an interchange of reflections about identity and cultural diversity in the Caribbean.

INTERNATIONAL HAVANA FESTIVAL OF POETRY
May, 26^th to 31^st 
Organizer: Association of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC)
Venues: San Francisco de Asis s concert hall and other sites in Havana.
This is a Festival where poets from different parts of the world meet for cultural exchange and where the leading expressive voice is poetry. In the event, new authors are promoted and their works come to light. This edition will be dedicated to the autochthonous peoples  poetry and the poetry of Asia. The participants will be able to take part in the World Meeting of Poets for Peace and in Defense of Humanity, reading sessions, concerts, plays, cinema and reading sessions in open public spaces, work places and universities.

INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF THE AUDIOVISUAL FOR CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENCE
May, 28^th to June 1^st
Organizer: Cuban Institute for Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC)
Venue: Havana and other provinces of our country
A meeting for exchanging ideas on genres like cartoon animation, fiction movie and documentary films. Cartoons created with digital technology and animation will also be made.  

June 

20th FESTIVAL THE SPANISH IMPRINT
June, 1th to 8th
Organizer: Havana s Grand Theatre and the National Ballet of Cuba
Venue: Havana s Grand Theatre
This Festival suggests a close look at the roots that made up our nationality by means of artistic expressions such as dance, music, plastic arts, literature and cinema. Cuban and Spanish participants will have the opportunity to show their art, and at the same time, to come closer to a people that recognizes itself in its traditions. There will be different artistic expression linked to the Spanish cultural heritage and its symbiosis with other autochthonic elements. The Festival will show a blending of rhythms, shades, ideas and styles. On 2008 this event will be of great importance due to the 20th Anniversary of the The Spanish Imprint Festival; the 60th Anniversary of the foundation of the National Ballet of Cuba; and the 21st Edition of the International Ballet Festival of Havana. 

VARADERO 2008 INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF CUBAN MUSIC
June, 11th to 15 th
Organizer: Cuban Institute of Music.
Venue: Varadero, in Matanzas.
With the participation of important artists, first- category shows will be presented for the enjoyment of national and foreign audience.

INTERNATIONAL BOLEROS DE ORO FESTIVAL
June, 26th to 29th
Organizer: Association of Writers and Artists (UNEAC)
Venue: Theaters in Havana.
The International Boleros de Oro Festival is the oldest and most prestigious boleros event in the western hemisphere. Cuban and foreign singers share important stages and night clubs for the enjoyment of the Cuban and foreign audience. In this Festival, composers, singers, musicologists and all bolero lovers will get together.
This event promotes a theoretical space for specialists and those interested in this genre where issues of utmost interest regarding musicology are discussed.
This Festival was created in 1986 by Cuban composer Jose Loyola Fernandez and musicologist ,for promotion and enjoyment of this genre.

CUCALAMBEANA WEEK
June, 30^th to July 6^th
Organizer: The Spanish American House of the Decima (Ten-Line Verse) and Improvised Verse and Las Tunas Provincial Management Office of Culture  
Venue: El Cornito, Las Tunas
A rural cultural fiesta inspired in poet Juan Cristobal Napoles Fajardo (El Cucalambe). A Spanish-American Colloquium to discuss themes as the ten-line country verses and the improvised verses in national cultures of Spanish-American countries. Poets, musicians, improvisers, artists, researchers and writers will participate in the meeting. The Cucalambeana tradition in the identity of peasant culture in Cuba is another theme to be analysed in this event, which includes several contests and a program of shows, fairs and traditional games

28th CARIBBEAN FESTIVAL FIESTA OF FIRE
July, 3rd to 9^th
Organizer: Provincial Management Office of Culture in Santiago de Cuba and the House of the Caribbean. 
Venue: Santiago de Cuba and Guantanamo provinces
Genuine Caribbean traditions in a great popular festival of dance and folklore. The Festival program, specially designed for historians, artists, ethnologists and sociologists interested in Caribbean culture, includes magic religious rituals, concerts, workshops, colloquies, fairs and exhibits.

2CND TRAVELLING CARIBBEAN FILM EXHIBITION
July 14^th to the 20^th
Host: Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and the Industry (ICAIC)
Venue: Chaplin cinema in Havana, and Cuba cinema in Santiago de Cuba.
The Caribbean and its islands take us to a plural universe, but at the same time to a shared identity as the result of the odds of a common and difficult history. Kingdom of the unexpected and the metaphor, a bridge of islands where races and cultures have intensely intertwined in constant migrations. A showcase of cinema from English, Spanish and French-speaking countries could be enjoyed in its diversity of fictional genres, on this occasion dedicated to the children.

CUBAN HIP-HOP MEETING AND FESTIVAL
August, 19^th to 24^th
Organizer:  National Council of Culture Houses
Venue: Havana
A space for discussion, learning and redefinition of concepts about themes related to Cuban Hip-Hop. In the event, the best groups of this genre will perform;   other foreign groups will also take part as a point of reference for the interchange of experiences with Cuban groups.

CUBADANZA  INTERNATIONAL PRACTICAL WORKSHOP OF MODERN DANCE
August 6^th to 17^th
Organizer: National Council of Performing Arts
Venue: Contemporary Dance of Cuba, Nacional Theatre
It shows the techniques of the Cuban School of Modern Dance, sponsored by one of the most prestigious Latin American companies, the Contemporary Dance Company of Cuba, founded in 1959 by an outstanding group of artists. This workshop will show and teach the techniques reached by the Cuban School of Modern Dance to those interested in this artistic expression.
All course participants from all over the world will enjoy the combination of the universal modern dance with the Cuban folklore to give dancers a distinctive character.

JAM SESSION FESTIVAL
September 11^th to 14^th
Organizer: Cuban Institute of Music
Venue: Varadero, in Matanzaz
Presided over by prestigious Maestro Chucho Valdes, this Festival will bring together the most important Cuban jazz players of all generations to create a true fiesta of improvisation in September.
Different stages at Varadero tourist resort will host these extraordinary jam sessions which characterize our most brilliant jazz players and other genres of Cuban music. The Festival will also be used to promote the resort as a destination for cultural tourism.

23cnd INTERNATIONAL HAVANA CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL 
October, 1st to 10th
Organizer: Association of Writers and Artists (UNEAC)
Venue Amadeo Roldan Theatre
An event which promotes new and famous contemporary musical works as well as new Cuban and foreign groups, composers, conductors and soloists of high artistic level.
The audience will be able to enjoy symphonic and choir concerts. Composers, interpreters and musicologists will give their views regarding the most recent aesthetic trends of contemporary music.

INTERNATIONAL MATAMOROS SON FESTIVAL
October, 16 th to 20 th
Organizer: Cuban Institute of Music and Santiago de Cuba s Municipal Management Office of Culture
Venue: Heredia Theater, Santiago de Cuba
The meeting favours the development of dancing popular music through its Cuban expression in the genre of Son which is a permanent part of the Cuban culture and its constant evolution and enrichment. An assessment of the development of the dancing popular music in our country and the fostering of couple dancing. Concerts, workshops, theoretical events, exhibits, meetings among groups will be held. The Festival pays homage to Miguel Matamoros, one of the most representative musician of Son and one of its top cultivators, a genuine Santiago citizen who, with the  Matamoros Trio¨ greatly  contributed to make Son be known inside and outside Cuba. The beautiful Santiago de Cuba city is the main venue of this event that summons artists of popular and traditional Cuban music and its most famous interpreters. The Festival - presided over by the Maestro Adalberto Alvarez, a famous Cuban musician and composer- yearly offers a space for an exchange among soneros and for the presentations of the best interpreters of this Cuban musical genre.

INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON THE ORGANIZATION OF CINEMATOGRAPHIC PRODUCTION
October 20 ,November 21
Organizer: Association of Writers and Artists, (UNEAC) and the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC)
Venue: Cinemateque of Cuba ,Chaplin cinema
The workshop has been conceived for people interested in knowing about the main aspects of the organization of cinematographic production as well for those who already work in some of these activities without having a wide experience or academic formation.

 IBERO-AMERICAN CULTURE CELEBRATION
October, 24^th to 30^th
Organizer: The Spanish American Center and Holguin s Provincial Management Office of Culture.
Venue: The Spanish  American Center, Holguin
A wide program of concerts, exhibits, workshops and artistic performances in an attractive popular fiesta which beautifies its venue ,the known City of parks. In the event, topics such as Iberian-American Thinking and Culture and From Columbian Modernism to Neo-liberal Iberian-American Post-modernism will be discussed. The celebration of Iberian-American culture is an event that rescues and promotes the Hispanic roots and backgrounds of the Cuban nation.
The streets and parks of the city of Holguin are a live, joyful and natural setting during a week, for undertaking a wide-ranged program of concerts, exhibits, workshops and popular celebrations. Important soloists, creators, domestic bands and guests from the entire Iberian-American area will take part. The hospitality and the cultural and tourist facilities in Holguin guarantee the fully enjoyment of these meetings.

INTERNATIONAL BALLET FESTIVAL OF HAVANA
October, 28^th to November 6^th
Biennial periodicity
Organizer: Ministry of Culture and the National Ballet of Cuba
Venue: Grand Theatre of Havana
One of the oldest and most prestigious events in the world of dance founded over 40 years ago. The leading figures and companies of ballet will take part in this non-competitive festival. The Festival, organized by The National Ballet of Cuba ,  one of the most prestigious companies of dance in the world  ,has a prominent place in the contemporary Iberian-American culture. The artistic and technical strictness of its dancers and diversity in the aesthetic conceptions of the choreographers give the Cuban Ballet Company a relevant place among the great institutions of this genre in the international scene.

ANFORA FESTIVAL OF MAGIC
November, 19^th to 25^th
Organizer: Las Tunas  Provincial Management of Culture and the National Council of Performing  Arts
Venue: Raul Gomez Garcia concert hall, Tunas Theatre.
A meeting for stage magic, manipulation techniques, small and big illusion and theoretical events will be held.

AUTHOR S WEEK
November: 20^th to 23^rd
Organizer: Casa de las Amèricas
Venue: Casa de las Amèricas
Annual meeting with a prestigious personality of the Latin-American literature and researchers of his works. Round tables, presentation of books and films, among other activities will take place. A tradition for which the House of the Americas has received many of the most prestigious writers of the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century.

JO JAZZ CONTEST OF YOUNG JAZZ PLAYERS  
November, 27^th to 30th
Organizer: Cuban Institute of Music
Venue: Havana,  Amadeo Roldan Theatre
A contest for young jazz players that favors participants to experiment not only in the traditional styles of jazz, but also in the search of their own style of creation. The event promotes new talents who play jazz in Cuba and allows knowing the contribution of the Cuban musicians to this genre.

CUBADANZON FESTIVAL
November 20^th to 23^rd
Organizer: Cuban Institute of Music and Matanzas  Provincial Management Office of Culture
Venue:  Sauto Theatre
A dance contest of Danzon for children, young people and adults. Danzon in Matanzas: Movies where Danzon in the main theme, people s dancing halls of Danzon and meetings among Danzon fan clubs. Matanzas has the privilege to be the cradle of Danzon and the Motherland of his creator. Thus, to keep, to know and to make this genre stay; to preserve the identity of Matanzas, to make every fellow-citizen of Matanzas feel they belong in their city- for future generations to inherit-, to exchange experiences and brotherly feelings with Danzon players in Cuba and abroad, these CUBADANZON Festivals were created.

DANCING IN CUBA
November 23^th to 28^rd
Organizer: Travel Agency PARADISO y ARTEX S.A
Venue:  Havana ,Cuba
The World Meeting for Dancers and Casino & Salsa Dance Academies.
An special occasion, where people interested in participating will have the chance to deeply learn about Cuban salsa as well as about other rhythms such as mambo, cha cha, conga, son, merengue; to attend classes and master conferences, short-term courses and choreography workshops; to enjoy dancing sessions with the best musical groups and presentations of guest dance academies and, at the same time, to enjoy the charm of a city full of music and color.

A FIESTA FOR GUANTANAMERA
December, 1^st to 4^th
Organizer: Guantanamo s Provincial Management Office of Culture
Venue: Guaso Theatre, Guantanamo
This event has a popular character showing the cultural blending of the Eastern region of country: the changüi, the French tumba and the French- Haitian folklore. Also, the event develops scientific activities, contests, exhibits, fairs, solemn commemorations and the Guantanamera nights. On this occasion, it is included a Colloquium dedicated to the Cuban music and a Symposium on the Patrimony of the Caribbean people. Besides, the Symbol and the Seal of the City will be presented.

INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF THE NEW LATIN-AMERICAN CINEMA
December, 2^nd. to 12^th
Organizer: Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry,  Ministry of Culture and the Festival House
Venue: Havana and other cities of the country
One of the most prestigious film Festivals which offers a wide panorama of this continent s audiovisual production. It shows the main fictional and documentary films of the world. The event also includes a contest on scripts and posters; seminars about cinema and new technologies; a seminar about Latin cinema in the USA; and a space dedicated   to the audiovisual world of the Latin-American childhood.

INTERNATIONAL HANDICRAFT FAIR 2008
December, 5^th to 14^th
Organizer: Cuban Fund of Cultural Assets
Venue: PABEXPO
This edition offers a wide panorama of the most relevant of the Cuban handicraft with   varied international samples. Exhibits, wholesale and retail sales of handicrafts, reproductions as well as their export. The event will also offer conferences and workshops  by recognized experts on development and marketing of Visual and Applied Arts. The UNESCO Prize for Handicrafts and the Picasso Medal has been presented in two occasions in the Fair and it has been acknowledged by the World Organization of Intellectual Property (OMPI).