Abstract
The creation of the Fábrica de Arte Cubano, in 2008, a community project space in Havana that gathers contemporary music, art, and performance artists, is an indicator of the Cuban capital’s transformation into a music city. Cuba’s musical development is strongly anchored in the presence of the State and policies that preserve Afro-Cubanness and music genres such as son, rumba, and salsa. With the fall of the Eastern Bloc and the end of the Soviet Union, beginning in the 1990s, the country has reorganized its economy, opening itself up to tourism and partnerships with private enterprise. It is from this set of historical and political factors that the Fábrica de Arte Cubano emerges as a space to question the nostalgic ideals of Havana and to negotiate with global and cosmopolitan worldviews. This chapter addresses the challenges surrounding music cities in Latin America, discusses the existing political and economic vulnerabilities in Latin American metropolises, describes and interprets Havana’s historical development as a music city, and presents the Fábrica de Arte Cubano as an important environment for the construction of the ideals of modernity on the socialist Caribbean island.
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Notes
- 1.
In 2016, the city of Salvador in Bahia, Brazil, was selected by UNESCO as a “City of Music,” a title widely celebrated in Brazilian media while at the same time bringing into question what type of public policies regarding music had been implemented in the city before then.
- 2.
The “Global South” is a term used in post-colonial studies that refers to the bloc of developing countries including the poorest regions of the world (generally in the Southern Hemisphere), as opposed to the richest countries (the Global North). The term serves as a metaphor for countries that have a history interconnected with colonialism and neocolonialism, and a social and economic structure with great inequalities in lifestyles, hope, vulnerability, and access to basic needs.
- 3.
Cumbia villera is a subgenre of cumbia that originated in the poor communities of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and became popular throughout the country, Latin America, and Latino communities abroad. In Argentina in 2017, the government considered the spread of cumbia villera through the country as a factor in the uptick in crime.
- 4.
For more information about the Instituto Cubano de la Música: http://www.dcubamusica.cult.cu/instituto/instituto/.
- 5.
For more information about EGREM: http://promociones.egrem.co.cu/.
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Soares, T. (2020). Beyond Nostalgic Havana: Music and Identity in the Fábrica de Arte Cubano. In: Ballico, C., Watson, A. (eds) Music Cities. New Directions in Cultural Policy Research. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35872-3_4
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