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The Miami Herald. Apr. 16, 2002
UM criticized for axing play with Cuban actress
By Wilfredo Cancio Isla. El Nuevo Herald. Apr. 16, 2002
Organizers of La Ma Teodora's 2002 film and theater festival have criticized
the University of Miami's Koubek Memorial Center for backing out of an agreement
to host a play that included a Cuban actress.
The play, El último bolero (The Last Bolero), featuring Verónica
Lynn, was to have been performed during the weekend at the 250-seat Koubek
theater.
It was moved at the last minute to the 100-seat Miami Light Project theater
at 3000 Biscayne Blvd., where it was performed Saturday and Sunday to packed
houses.
''We were not given a single reason for this sudden change,'' said Alberto
Sarraín, director of the theater group La Ma Teodora.
Originally, the play was to have been performed Friday through Sunday at the
Hale Piano Theater in Coral Gables, but that theater's owners canceled the
performances, citing fears that anti-Castro demonstrators might damage the
building.
Shortly thereafter, the Koubek theater offered La Ma Teodora its stage for
performances Saturday and Sunday.
However, on Friday, Koubek management told Sarraín it would not host
the play and suggested it be presented at the Knight Center's Ash Theater.
Conductor: Trip to Cuba a chance to share music
By Jennifer Babson. jbabson@herald.com. , April 16, 2002.
KEY WEST - In what will be a historic visit, a Cuban-American symphony
conductor from South Florida will travel to Havana next month to lead the
Orquesta Nacional de Cuba.
Sebrina Maria Alfonso, 43, conductor of the part-time Key West Symphony
Orchestra, is scheduled to depart Miami on May 27 and spend five days rehearsing
with Cuban musicians, preparing for a June 2 concert at Havana's Amadeo Roldan
Theatre.
''I hope it's the beginning of a dialogue that will be accepted by
everyone,'' Alfonso said Monday. "We are all going to just make music
together, to share our culture and our art. This is not political for me. This
is really about music.''
While an increasing number of sports groups and performers from across the
United States have traveled to Cuba, few hail from South Florida, where
opposition to such cultural visits runs deep.
Fewer, still, are Cuban American.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of the Treasury granted the orchestra
approval to travel to Cuba with up to 90 people on a cultural exchange.
Alfonso was invited to conduct last fall by Leo Brouwer, artistic director
of the Orquesta Nacional, after he heard about her from the former manager of
Leonard Bernstein, the late composer and conductor.
Orlando Alonso, a 24-year-old Cuban pianist, is scheduled to reciprocate
with a performance in Key West in December.
AMERICAN WORKS
The one-and-a-half hour program Alfonso has planned for Havana will showcase
mostly American works, including a composition by Samuel Barber, a Grammy-award
winning concerto by Christopher Rouse, and a piece by composer Joan Tower
entitled Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman.
The maestra will close the performance with a classic -- Beethoven's 7th
Symphony.
Alfonso, a Key West native, studied at the Peabody Conservatory in
Baltimore, leading nationally renowned symphonies such as the Frederick Symphony
Orchestra of Maryland. Internationally, she has conducted Italy's famed
Orchestra de Rús and the Czech Republic's Prague Radio Symphony.
Accompanying her to Cuba will be Grammy-award winning guitarist Sharon Isbin
and dozens of symphony patrons who will pay $3,500 each for an upscale cultural
exchange that includes tours of Old Havana, an excursion to Viñales, and
a guided stroll through the Museo de Bellas Artes.
Included in the price: Spots on one of two 58-seat American Eagle planes
reserved by ABC Charters in Miami, which is booking the trip, and accommodations
at the upscale Golden Tulip Parque Central Hotel.
A cocktail reception the first night of the trip is expected to include
orquesta members -- and a cameo by Cuba's Minister of Culture.
BIG FEAR
There is one person who won't be on hand for all the festivities, however.
Alfonso's 84-year old abuela, Consuelo.
'She just said, 'I don't know why you would want to go there.' Mostly it is
her dislike for [Cuban leader Fidel] Castro, and she has a big fear for our
safety,'' Alfonso explained.
It's a reaction likely to be echoed by some in South Florida's large Cuban
community, where ''cultural exchanges'' with Cuba are often looked upon with
suspicion and criticized as Cuban propaganda.
But Alfonso -- who says she isn't interested in meeting Castro -- has
considered that.
EXPERIENCE
''My desire to experience that country has nothing to do with the way I feel
about people not having the freedom to be and do what they want to better their
lives, and the fact that the government has made their lives so miserable. I
don't applaud that. I don't like that,'' she said.
"But I don't want to feel fear from American Cubans. I don't want my
rights violated because of their feelings, and I don't want to not do something
because of their feelings.''
Alfonso and her grandmother -- whose family has lived in Key West for five
generations -- were born in the United States. Alfonso, a lesbian who is taking
her partner, Phyll Yoon, along for the trip, has never set foot in Cuba.
"These people live 90 miles away from me, and my family is from there
overall, that's where we came from, a lot of my culture came from a Cuban
background. To experience my art with the Cuban musicians, it's probably just a
personal thing, but it's something that I am very excited about.''
MUSIC SUPPLIES
At the request of a Cuban music teacher, Alfonso says she plans to bring
some musical supplies along, such as strings, bowhair, resin, and a spare violin
and cello.
While politics may swirl around the trip in some quarters, Alfonso said the
visit isn't about that.
''It's just like the Olympics -- the idea of putting [politics] aside,''
Alfonso said.
"It's human-to-human, and it's sharing an art that doesn't need a
language because it has its own language. It's about souls meeting aside from
all the politics. When I play Beethoven, that's not Cuban, that's not American
-- that's German.''
Cuba closely follows the events in Venezuela
HAVANA - (AP) -- President Hugo Chávez's return to power in Venezuela
continued to dominate headlines here on Monday as Cuba's state-controlled media
closely followed the aftermath of the two-day overthrow of Fidel Castro's
strongest ally in the Western Hemisphere
The Bolivarian Revolution Triumphs, the Communist Party newspaper Granma
said in a front page story about Chávez's return to the capital after
being held two days by the military following violent protests.
Chávez has long identified with South American independence fighter
Simón Bolívar and even renamed his country the ''Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela'' in his honor.
Chávez has referred to his rule as the "Bolivarian Revolution.''
Cuba's Cuban Workers Union congratulated Chávez supporters Monday for
the ''triumph of right and justice'' with Chávez's restoration of power.
''We reiterate to our Venezuelan brothers that they can always count on the
sure and unconditional support of the millions of Cuban workers who feel as if
the cause of the Bolivarian Revolution is ours,'' read the letter, published in
the weekly newspaper Trabajadores.
Over the weekend, Cuban TV broke repeatedly into regularly scheduled
broadcasts to keep citizens here updated on what was happening in Venezuela.
Many Cubans stayed up all night to watch live images provided through a
direct link with Venezuelan TV showing Chávez's triumphant return to the
Miraflores presidential palace.
Castro's communist government earlier condemned Chávez's ouster as a
coup orchestrated by corrupt politicians and business interests. | 
