SMITHSONIAN JOURNEYS QUARTERLY
TRAVEL QUARTERLY WINTER 2016
N R E U Y O S J SE EING TH E WORLD IN A N E W LIG HT
Viral Che • Rescuing Havana’s architecture • Secret societies Exploring pristine seas • Taíno revival • Mobsters • New nightspots
WINTER 2016 CUBA
Cuba
Exploring secret realms Why is a man dancing barefoot in the street, a cone-shaped hood covering his head? And what to make of strange yellow chalk markings or the blood sacrifice of roosters and doves? These are rituals of a mystical subculture in Cuba, formed during its years as a Spanish colony and plantation economy, when West African slaves melded their pantheistic worship of spirits with features of Catholicism. This blending of cultures and beliefs gave birth to the country’s unique religious practices: Santería, as well as other mysterious associations and smaller groupings. The island’s appetite for secret societies can seem boundless. Among the early settlers were Freemasons, who established a robust membership among the island’s white elite. After the 1959 revolution, the Masons faced pressure to become part of larger statecontrolled associations; indeed, there were calls by some of their Photographs by Nicola Lo Calzo
communist members to dissolve. But their lodges were never closed down, as they were in many communist countries. Today there are an estimated 30,000 members in 316 lodges.
During the last couple of years, Italian photographer Nicola Lo Calzo has photographed these mysterious byways, focusing his work in the cities of Santiago de Cuba, Trinidad, and Havana. His subjects include Santería priests, members of the Abakuá fraternal order, Masons, and rappers at odds with the authorities for refusing to join the state-run music industry. All this is part of a larger project, started by Lo Calzo in 2010, to chronicle the global history of the African diaspora. In Cuba, his thematic focus is Regla, a reference to Regla de Ochá, the formal name for Santería as well as the part of Havana where the first Abakuá lodge was formed in 1836. In its most fluid sense, Regla, which literally means “rule,” also evokes a set of communal values that sustains a group. Certainly for Cuba’s slaves, brought to the country to labor on sugar plantations, secret societies provided a sense of control and power that allowed them an escape from the misery of bondage. And up to the present day, Lo Calzo asserts, these subcultures are sanctuaries of self-expression. “They open an otherwise firmly closed door to individuality,” he says. “Young Cubans live a unique kind of freedom that is both personal and shared, far from —Victoria Pope the prying eyes of the state.” l
SACRED SYMBOLS Chalk hieroglyphics drawn on a trunk of an oak tree (top) convey mystical messages to members of the Afro-Cuban secret society called Abakuá. During an Abakuá initiation ceremony in the Havana district of Regla, a young aspirant (far right) depicts Aberisún, an ireme, or spirit messenger. A Masonic apron and necktie are worn by Nicolas Rojas, a Freemason from San Andres #3 Lodge, in Santiago de Cuba.
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PHOTOGRAPHER NICOLA LO CALZO IS REPRESENTED BY L’AGENCE À PARIS/LUZ
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LIKE A LOCAL
Printing with ghosts By Mimi Dwyer
airplane shortly after the revolution.
Photographs by Arien Chang Castán
They landed in Miami and left it
I
behind forever. I grew up in the am standing in the back of the
shadow of that trauma, tiptoeing
Taller Experimental de Gráfica,
around it.
Cuba’s premier printmaking
In 2015, to my grandmother’s
studio, showing artist Max Delgado
dismay, I flew to Havana to watch
Corteguera my cracked phone. He
the U.S. Embassy reopen, and to
jokes with me: How do I get one
look for remaining family. It was
like that? I tell him I’d be happy to
intense and difficult. The island
barter a lesson in my specialty,
was hot and I was alone. But it
the shattering of iPhones, for his,
also seemed like the only thing
traditional Cuban lithography. He
I’d ever felt compelled to do
demurs.
without knowing why. That made it
I pull up the photo I’m looking for, a snapshot from a few months back
important somehow. I came back to Havana this
of the logo for the bank my family
summer with an assignment to
once owned in Cuba, Banco Garrigo.
make a print at the Taller and write
It’s in my archive as part of an ill-
about the experience. Beyond that,
fated plan hatched with my cousin
I also wanted a reason to look up
to get the logo’s elements tattooed
more addresses and dig through
on our sides: A palm tree, two gears
more records and cold-call more
working together, and some kind
Cubans with my mother’s strange
of tool we couldn’t identify, shaped
last name, Argilagos. Then there
vaguely like a check mark.
was the matter of the family’s bank
Max knows the tool immediately:
crest: I often felt unsure of my
an arado, he says. A plow. For
claim to my family’s Cuban past.
campesinos (farmers) to dig lines in
Printing the image would help me
the soil. The bank must have been
make it my own.
agricultural? “I think so,” I say. “I think it
exports, especially tobacco, had a
Ian Marcos Gutiérrez, a
prestige that made them valuable
23-year-old printer at the
Max gives me a quick primer
throughout the world. Exporters
Taller Experimental de
was small.” The truth is, I don’t
before we get started: Lithography
wanted a way to protect Cuban
Gráfica, in Havana, helps
really know the specifics, as with
arrived in Cuba before anywhere
industry from counterfeiters. Using
the author prepare a block
most of my family’s past in Cuba.
else in the Americas, as a way to
lithography, they could make seals
of lithographic limestone
I have always liked it that way—a
protect the sanctity and integrity
and rings that both decorated their
for printing.
little mysterious and vague. My
of the country’s industry. By
products and distinguished them
grandparents fled the island on an
the early 19th century, Cuban
from those of competitors.
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The process depends more than anything on the repellent properties of oil and water, and
precise and intricate images
to Havana who knew how to
onto paper.
use them. Many of the original
Cuba imported thousands
machines still work. The Taller’s
their interaction with limestone. By
of lithographic limestones
oldest is an intricate, red
using acids, powders, solvents, oils,
from Germany in the 1800s,
woodcutting machine from 1829,
and gum in specific combinations,
when the technology was first
still used by artists every day.
lithographers manipulate the
emerging. Cuban businessmen
In the 1950s, shortly before
places a stone receives ink. In this
brought machines from France
the revolution, aluminum replaced
way, they can use a stone to print
and Germany and lured experts
lithography as the best way to
WINTER 2016 SMITHSONIAN JOURNEYS 45
HAVANA’S HIDDEN GEMS Exploring the extraordinary— and imperiled—architecture of a sometimes surreal, often magical city
A rehearsal takes place at Teatro América, on Galiano Street in Havana. From the outside, the theater is nothing special, concealed behind a dull screen of gray polygon concrete. But step inside and you’ve entered the museum that is Cuban architecture.
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THE ICONIC CHE FROM MAN TO MYTH TO CLICHÉ By Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo
My grandmother used to light a candle to worship him, even though her idol had been an atheist throughout his life. The memory still dances in quivering light: When I was a child in the late ’70s in Havana, during the never-ending blackouts, I was terrified by the shadows on his face. ¶ That famous face, printed on a huge poster my grandmother had scavenged from the streets of Havana following a military parade: It was heroic, seemingly immortal, and yet a decade had passed since he’d been killed in the jungles of Bolivia, a country I couldn’t have pointed to on a map. ¶ Grandma used to pray to him as “Saint Che.” She wasn’t fond of the revolution, but she did believe in strong spirits that refuse to leave this world. For years I thought that his family name was Sánchez (which Cubans pronounce SAHN-che), and that Che was a diminutive. Then in school I learned that he was Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, and that he’d been given pop culture immortality by a former fashion photographer named Alberto Díaz Gutiérrez, who’d later changed his name to Korda. Everything about the man and the myth was always a little off-kilter. 66 SMITHSONIAN JOURNEYS WINTER 2016
PHOTO: PAOLO PELLEGRIN, MAGNUM
LOCAL LENS
Dancing in the streets By Simon Worrall
Gabriel Davalos (@davalos_photography), 36, grew up in Havana amid what he calls conditions of “immense spiritual wealth and the necessary material things.” But as the Soviet Union began to implode in 1989 and Cuba was battered by a severe economic crisis, many Cubans emigrated. Davalos was determined to stay in the country he calls his “utopia.” Later he became a photojournalist, using his images to question and explore the reality around him. Communicating by email, Davalos writes about how his pictures are, above all, about storytelling, and why he is drawn to dance for inspiration. The following excerpts have been edited for length and clarity. Cuba must be a complicated place
This shot features two professional
to be a photographer. How free are
dancers who are dating in real life.
you to take the photos you want?
They belong to different companies
When I was young, I wanted to take
and had been working in different
pictures but I did not have a camera,
countries for several months. That
nor the money to buy a camera. Then,
day was special: the reunion of two
an Italian photographer—a friend of
Cubans in love. This photo came
my family—donated his old Nikon
together after 50 attempts.
D200. I began my journey that day.
And the other couple lying on the
Do you now use an iPhone or a
ground in the rain?
regular camera?
This picture was taken at the
When you live in a poor country, you
famous Malecón of Havana. In some
are forced to be creative and learn,
years, the sea floods the streets
no matter what kind of equipment
in lowland areas. When I heard the
you own. Becoming an excellent
news on television, I picked up
professional can help close the
these two dancers, who were still
technological gap. Whether you
rehearsing at the National Ballet
begin or end your career with an
of Cuba, and we went out together
iPhone, what really matters is how
looking for photo opportunities.
creative and knowledgeable you are.
It was risky business taking the
Tell us the story behind the ballettype shot of the man and woman in the street. Are they professional dancers? How many “takes” did you need to get the right image?
pictures under the rain, with the ocean coming in and the strong winds. At one point, three ferocious
EL CERRO NEIGHBORHOOD, HAVANA
June 14, 2016 159 likes Glenda García, soloist with the
waves dragged the dancers all over
National Ballet of Cuba, and
the street, while I had to hang on to
Julio Blanes, soloist with the
a utility pole! l
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Revolution Ballet Company.
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