A new edition of the Cucalambeana Fiesta is bringing joy to the Balcón de Oriente these days. As usual, the event began with a parade from the Provincial Council of Plastic Arts to Plaza Martiana, in the city's historic center. This time we had the joy of being accompanied by the Minister of Culture Alpidio Alonso and prestigious cultural traditions from different parts of the country.

Las Tunas, Cuba.- Guayaberas, hats, blue and red ribbons, among other elements, were part of the tour, spiced up by the melodies of the Provincial Concert Band and the presence of a stilt walker, riders on brimming horses, Birama Flowers in cars decorated with flowers, the community cultural project Raíces de San José and the highest authorities of the province.

On 28 June, after the parade, the José Martí Plaza hosted the opening ceremony, with performances by the Duo Punto Cubano, the tune’s singer Anadelis Martínez, and poets Dimitri Tamayo and Sindy Manuel Torres, who honored Celina González, the “Queen of Peasant Music,” and the bard Juan Cristóbal Nápoles Fajardo (El Cucalambé), on the occasion of his 195th birthday.

Juana Yamilka Viñals Suárez, president of the Municipal Assembly of People's Power, gave the central speech, in which she recognized the importance of the defense of identity for this eastern land and some of the most representative spaces of the Cuban Supreme Guateque.

On the first day of the program, the visual arts were in high spirits, with the inauguration of several exhibitions, including the Landscape, Illustrated Décima, and Crafts exhibitions, hosted by the Casa del Joven Creador and the Fayad Jamís gallery, respectively.

Pedro Jesús Ávila Arias, the author of Paisaje con Palma, won in the first category; in the second, the decimator Maikel Delgado Corrales, from the municipality of Colombia, together with the illustrator Ángel López González, were the winners with their work Al amparo de la sombra. The crafts section saw Iván Castillo Guerrero, from Camagüey, win for Fantasía tropical (Tropical Fantasy), made using the terracotta technique.

Also outstanding is the personal exhibition Paisajes cubanos (Cuban Landscapes), by Carlos Gutiérrez, on display at Las Tunas headquarters of the Nicolás Guillén Foundation (FNG in Spanish); and three plastic artists from Santiago de Cuba contribute their particular reflections of the landscape in the group exhibition Consecuencias (Consequences), which occupies the Uneac gallery. Víctor Manuel Jardines García, Jorge Félix González Céspedes, and Dennis Jardines Guerra come together with a colorful visual representation of the Cuban countryside and the city.

Likewise, the theoretical event Diversity, Essence, and Identity shared interesting research, and the documentary Echoes and Island Traditions in Cabaiguán, by musicologist Sonia Margarita Pérez Cassola, winner of the Cubadisco 2024 Award for best music producer, was presented.

The value of intangible heritage and traditions in the different aspects of popular culture was one of the most debated topics in the theoretical event Diversity, Essence and Identity, which takes place within the Jornada Cucalambeana 2024. Academics from the University of Las Tunas, art instructors, methodologists from cultural centers, and other experts agreed that looking for synergy between the different actors who influence cultural processes is an urgent need. They said the educational system, the cultural centers, the media, and the political and government decision-makers must articulate them. All of this is to make preserving and reproducing Cuban cultural traditions possible, including at the territorial level.

Likewise, the German artist Hans Urlich Meller presented at the FNG the audiovisual Memories of the Cucalambeana, in which he compiled numerous snapshots remarkable for their beauty, mastery of photographic technique, and honoring of rural traditions.

Meanwhile, the Recital de Mujeres Decimistas, held in the same institution, became a hymn to idiosyncrasy. Under the leadership of Odalys Leyva, president of the Writers' Branch of the Provincial Committee of UNEAC, writers such as Maritza Batista, Nuria Bárbara Fernández, Xiomara Maura Rodríguez, Lucy Maestre, Marina Lourdes Jacobo, and Yuslenis Molina were present. As a singularity, the hostess introduced the space and each participant, in no less than octosyllabic rhyme.

Verses such as these nuanced the meeting: Greetings to those present / This celebration of women / carries lights in her being / and crosses walls and bridges / The eloquent women / with the tenth as a guide / offer the light of day, / their spring arpeggio, / like the first rain / that germinates with poetry/.
The meeting was joined by tonadistas such as Marisol Guillama, Taymara Portillo, Antonio La Villa, Anadelis Martínez and Yaniuska Hernández, and the poets’ repentistas Rainer Nodal, Dimitri Tamayo, and Guillermo Castillo Vega.

Thus began the Supreme Party of the Cuban Peasantry, which this time counts with the presence of notorious figures of the idiosyncrasy such as Luis Paz (Papillo), director of the Centro Iberoamericano de la Décima y el Verso Improvisado; Pedro Péglez, president of the national group Ala Décima; as well as others equally valuable such as José Antonio Iznaga (El Jilguerito de Cienfuegos), María Victoria Rodríguez and Marisol Guillama. Tradition is celebrating.