You are there, "lady of the four decades," with your eclectic style, sheltering the dreams of children and adults along the paths of art. Tomasa Varona Cultural Center, on your 40th anniversary, the Amateur Artists Movement thanks you.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- Ángel Orlando Matos started as an amateur in La Victoria group led by Josefina Taylor (today director of the Onilé folkloric company), then he held a position as an instructor and improved himself to become a provincial dance methodologist.
I have had the pleasure of training children, adolescents and young people. For example, I created the Sabor Latino group, which received several awards; I trained the members of Cueybá, who is already a professional group and, currently, I am in love with The Voice of the Silence project, whose protagonists are deaf and hard of hearing children. Together with the actress Elizabeth Borrero, I support that brotherhood, which has a national category in theater and dance."
María Rosario Quintana, one of the founders, remembers that since 1979 steps had been taken to create the cultural center. The instructor Argelio Puig and I went to Manzanillo to get experience. Already in 1980, the "Tomasa Varona" emerged, but before that, we had been working on bringing together talent.
The first years were of great effervescence. There were musical groups, soloists, choirs, theater groups, dance, piano and plastic arts classes were given. They did many casino dancing groups, doll exhibitions and other initiatives. I worked the Yoruba dances, I did research on the peasant side, I prepared the dance performance of some carnival shows ," he affirms.
Damaris Pérez Góngora, who directs the Center's Theater Chair, arrived there in those first years, and remembers: Emerging courses were held for the training of instructors and we grew in number. There was a lot of enthusiasm, we worked with people of different ages, including inmates, and we went to rural areas. Many of those students today are my co-workers."
Dianelis Ortiz is the current director of the institution. She says that 31 art instructors work at her headquarters, while 160 fulfill that role in schools. There are also 15 artistic units with national category, 17 provincial and 30 municipal. But behind the figures is the commitment that is perceived in the Cucalambeana Festival and other spaces, that defends culture in the face of vicissitudes such as lack of furniture or difficulties with audio.
Therefore, you, house-mother, look at them with pride. You remember those beginnings under the guidance of Ángel Jover, the first director. You know that now you have fewer resources and it hurts that some underestimate you, but you raise your forehead, proud that many of the great artists of these estates took their first steps under your blanket, the one that was once the home of landowner Don Claudio Aguilar.
