Santiago de Cuba Gets Ready for Caribbean Festival

Like every year, the eastern city hosts this meeting, this time on July 3-9, which brings together the most diverse cultural expressions around a country of this geographic area with the purpose of exchanging customs and traditions.

During the meeting, held on Thursday, it was announced that about 280 artists, producers, coordinators and intellectuals will participate, in addition to 45 artistic groups of the province and the 30 groups registered of 18 nationalities, which will perform in the different areas of the Festival, also known as the Fire Fiesta.

Also during the meeting the organizers provide details of the opening gala, the inauguration of the Surinam Center, the inaugural parade that will close with the delegation of the Caribbean nation, as well as of the premiere of a theme park dedicated to Robin Dobru, poet and politician of Surinam.

Orlando Verges, director of the Caribbean Center, explained that this edition will also include theoretical meetings, popular parades, exchanges between artists, fine arts exhibitions and the traditional tributes to deities and personalities.

In addition, the Caribbean Center award will be handed over to six communities of descendants of runaway slaves and that the 35th edition of the Fire Fiesta will be dedicated next year to the 500th anniversary of the founding of the city of Santiago de Cuba and to the Bahamas, he said.

This Festival was created in April, 1981, on the initiative of Joel James Figarola, and from the start it has been attended by important intellectuals of Spanish, English and French speaking Caribbean.