This Year´s Fire Party Will Pay Tribute to Popular Culture

A tribute to the Caribbean´s popular culture will be paid during an international workshop entitled “The Caribbean That Unites Us,” to be held within the framework of the 24th edition of the Fire Party, this time around dedicated to the 200th anniversary of Haiti´s independence.

Kenia Dorte, the event´s organizer, explained that all preparations have been made at the Heredia Theater in Santiago de Cuba to accommodate the public and as many as 200 intellectuals from Haiti, France, Trinidad & Tobago, the Dominican Republic, Guyana and Cuba.

The opening speech will be delivered by Cuban senior researcher Armando Hart, chief of the Marti Program Office, who will also dictate a master lecture under the title “Modern Age Was Born in the Caribbean.”

Other activities include an exhibition to mark the 200th anniversary of the Haitian Revolution, featuring pieces and artifacts from the freedom fighters of that beloved Caribbean nation.

Mrs. Dorte noted that working sessions and lectures will tackle such topics as migration, ethnicity, relationships among Caribbean people, as well as the influence of African-Haitian cultural roots in Cuba and in other countries.

Attendants will also spare some time in broaching the personality of Jose Marti and Antonio Maceo, as well as the role played by these two great figures of Cuba´s Independence Wars. According to Cuban researchers, Haitians left footprints of their own in the three Independence Wars that took place in Cuba back in the 19th century.