Holguin, home of the May Pilgrimages. In Calixto García Park, the bustle isn’t the usual kind found in colonial gardens. It’s a dense, electric murmur that precedes the storm of drums. Eyes are drawn to the summit. Up there, on Loma de la Cruz, the 458 steps await. But those who set out today aren’t seeking religious penance; they’re seeking the heresy of art.
Today marks the beginning of the 33rd edition of the World Festival of Young Artists. Although an official press conference announces that “the intellectual thought of Fidel Castro will be honored.” Or that the gala will feature the Norberto Leyva Band, the real history being written in these streets isn’t in the speeches. It’s in the worn soles of the young people who, since 1994, have transformed this city into the Capital of Young Art of Cuba.
The Origin: The Cross That Became an Axe
To understand this event, we must delve into the 18th century. In those years, a friar named Antonio José Alegre placed a cross atop Bayado Hill to ward off epidemics. From then on, the people of Holguin climbed it out of faith. But in 1994, during the “Special Period,” when Cuba was crumbling. A group of young people from the Hermanos Saíz Association (AHS) decided that one could not live on religious faith alone; faith was needed in the youth.
Thus, the reinterpretation was born. The cross was transformed into the Axe of Holguin, a symbol of the city. The Catholic pilgrimage became the Pre-Romerías: a peaceful yet noisy invasion of the main streets. It wasn’t a procession. It was a symbolic assault on modernity and silence. As Alexis Triana, honorary president, recently recalled, the dream was “to awaken that hill from its slumber.” Three decades later, they continue to climb.
The Backbone: Our Memory and Resilience
Tonight’s parade is not just a party. It’s the tip of the iceberg of an intellectual behemoth called the “Our Memory” Thought Congress.
For 33 years, this event has been the backbone of the festival. While rap and rock fill the streets, the intense debate rages in the Periquera halls and parks. The organizers have announced that this year the theoretical spaces will merge due to the country’s energy situation. That’s the key to the contemporary Romerías: the ability to adapt without losing its impact.
This is no minor logistical issue. In a country where fuel and electricity shortages are daily scourges. The AHS (Hermanos Saíz Association) has decided not to cancel the festival, but to reinvent its format. The music moves to more walkable plazas, the panels are shortened or set up in the street. Adversity, that old Cuban ghost, becomes the format here.
One of the greatest merits of this event is that it breaks with centralism. While Havana captures the world’s attention. During this week Holguin is the epicenter of the cultural universe.
In this 33rd edition, the artistic brigades come not only from the capital, but also from Santiago de Cuba, Granma, and Guantanamo. And they don’t come for a stroll. They come to occupy the festival’s most sacred spaces: “Babel,” for the visual arts; “Shared Words,” for literature; and “Blue Camera,” for audiovisual art.
The Romerías de Mayo are a declaration of principles: young Cuban art is not confined to Havana’s city center; it permeates the provinces. And in doing so, it restores to Holguin a sense of identity that no other province in eastern Cuba manages to replicate on this scale. That’s why Holguin is the capital: not only because it happens here, but because all the voices of the archipelago converse here.
The 33rd edition, dedicated to Fidel Castro’s centennial and the 40th anniversary of the AHS (Hermanos Saíz Association). It maintains its two distinct musical souls.
On one hand, the street saturated with Rockmerías, where metal and punk sing of existential apathy with an energy that seems to want to melt down the Transformers (a dangerous thing to do in times of electricity crisis, but a beautiful metaphor). On the other, the grand finale with Isaac Delgado and his Orchestra, which will seal the night of the 8th with the institutional motto of historical memory.
Today, as evening falls, while the pilgrimage departs from Calixto García Park, thousands of young people carry an invisible axe in their hands. They have learned that tradition is not about being passive.
Also the rest of the year, Holguin is a quiet city in eastern Cuba. But from May 2nd to 8th, it becomes the battleground where art proves it doesn’t need vast resources to be timeless. Just a handful of passionate souls who refuse to come down from their vantage point.
By: Daimy Peña Guillén
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