VERY SHORT CHRONICLE: Juana, the Great Show

They say that Juana Bacallao was once asked what her zodiac sign was. She didn't think for a moment, she answered: Oyster!

That was her mood: natural, spontaneous, natural.She was a lively genius who didn't need much encouragement.

Juana reigned in the most emblematic Cuban cabarets, in theaters and on television shows.

She was her own character. A singer of singular musicality. A torrent on the scene. She was the spectacle herself.

She started from the classics of Cuban song and recreated them with wonderful self-confidence. Some of her choruses, which she used to invent at the time, would deserve to be included in an anthology of Cuban gracejo.

Juana Bacallao has died at age 98. She has an extraordinary anecdote. Hundreds of recordings remain. And the example of an unshakeable spirit.

In one of her shows she said it, casually: "I’m like Guinea grass: the cyclone bends me, but it does not uproot me."

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff