Leading and Following: First Impressions to Rapport How to Tango Across the Border of Cuba and America

/
Leading and Following: First Impressions to Rapport How to Tango Across the Border of Cuba and America

By James Martin

After dark, the streets filled with music. Drums, horns, singing, and strumming. As you walked along, there wasn’t a street that didn’t have the music of two or three bands saturating the night air. I was starting to relax. Time was an ocean, the oily air was sensual, and music was everywhere. 

Read More

Hatuey: A Memory of Fire: Translating an Opera across Time, Space, Culture and Language

/

By Deborah Kapchan, in collaboration with Frank London 

When I landed in the Havana airport on January 4th 2017, the air embraced me like a warm sea, the boundaries of my skin loosening in the heat. The airport was teeming with taxi drivers holding signs as well as tourists looking for their ride. I searched for my name to no avail. My driver had not come. So I tried to get Cuban money from a Citibank ATM – in case I needed to get my own taxi – until I noticed the words “for deposit only” above the machine. At that point I went outside to wait, breathing in the tobacco smoke that filled the humid air.

Read More