Son Corazon is based on interviews with Cubans living in the United States, Hispanic poetry and Cuban historical research.

Artistic Director: Ana Ines King 
Music Performed by: Jose Angel Lorenzo & Orquesta Timbason
Flamenco Guitars: by David and Kathy Robinson
Bass Recorder and Bass Ocarina by: Marc Langelier
Drums and percussion by: Kevin Davis, Ram and Drums No Guns

ACT I

Nada Puede Dormir (Nothing can sleep) 1492-1510

Like sending a ray of darkness and dead over a lighted bullring
Defining what Goya and all Spain had to represent…
an enormous bullring broken with violence in two colors:
White and Black. White of sun and luxuriance
Black, deep of shadows and black blood clot
What horror, what horror far away…
The blood takes the dreams away
Nothing can sleep… Nobody can sleep

- R. Alberti

Entre el Clavel y la Espada (Between the Carnation and the Sword)

In 1492 the Catholic Monarchs of Spain decreed that all Gypsies be expelled from the Kingdom or face execution. Gypsies were given sixty days to leave.  Some of them traveled to the New World, Cuba in particular, where they were captivated by the African-Cuban rhythms. They mixed the passionate fury of Flamenco and the rich mysticism of Middle Eastern dance with the powerful heat of Cuban expression. A large-scale Spanish and French migration to Cuba and the Caribbean coast of Colombia at the end of the 18th century added more to the mixture of sound that came from Cuba and certain elements of music began taking shape.

Gitanos / Colombianas

Son y Guaracha (1950)

The Caribbean region, and Cuba in particular, continued to be a cultural crossroads through migration. Following the  mass extermination of the Native peoples, the Spanish turned to the Slave Trade for labor and brought captives from various parts of the African continent to the island. In addition to this, because Cuba’s geographical position made it a natural port of call, travelers from many different European countries settled on the island, helping to form an population full of distinctive features. Despite the differences between all of these cultures a common characteristics united them all - the need to communicate.

El Carretero / Dos Gardenias / Besame Mama / Como Fue

Ritmos del Alma (Rhythms of the Soul)

If you are losing control because of the rhythm in your soul, if you should be in bed, but you are dancing on the street instead, that is the spirit of Rumba.

Rumba is fiesta, it is the music, and singing and dancing that make up a party. Rumba was brought together by people of African and Spanish descent who often found themselves at the bottom of

the social ladder and often shared in their struggles against oppression.

ACT II

Amor, Corazón y Lucha

There are men who struggle for a day and they are good
There are others who struggle for a year and they are better
There are those who struggle for many years and they are very good
But there are those who struggle over a lifetime
Those are the indispensable ones

Bertolt Brecht

Ojala / La Maza /El Unicornio Azul / Gaviota, Music by Silvio Rodriguez

Libertad!

There were three days…Three days of hunger and misery in my life
Do you know what it means to want to fly but not have any wings?
There were chains and lassos that my soul wanted to heave off
With tears in my eyes I only looked back
Chained were parents, family, my people
Without waiting for an answer, I embraced the ocean
And the waves called to me: What happened, are you insane?
And my body was so tired, so tired of struggling,
The minutes were hours and the hours dragged on,
While weariness overwhelmed my soul.
Do you know weariness that I have to defeat you?
Do you know weariness that you are stronger than any pain and fear?
Do you know weariness that I have to defeat you?
My God, I have been swimming endlessly…so many hours I know have passed
I feel myself in the same place, I feel myself unable to advance,
I feel myself starting to die…
And the ocean tells me that there somebody crying for my pain,
My mother, dear mother, I know I am in your heart.
I see a light in the distance and I can no longer feel my legs
Please understand me Mother, I did it to avoid suffering, I did it for my motherland!
You are always in my heart, my mother and motherland
And one day peace will bloom from the seed everywhere
And then my beautiful Cuba, you will no longer be in torment…

Las Manos de mi Tia (My Aunt's Hands)

Desperate parents feared for their children’s future under Communist rule. Between 1959 and 1962 more than 14,000 children were sent by their parents out of Cuba to America unaccompanied, hoping to meet them later.

My Aunt’s Hands

What I remember of 1967
is sleepy waiting
for the Abuelos and tias
to come from Cuba at last
So we could ditch my red-haired babysitter with the loud voice
and be watched by someone who was blood.
And then there was the night when they appeared
Their bodies like a pile of rubble in the door
Bumping into each other a bit
As they stepped through the marble halls of
Our dark American building.
Whom to go with? 
My aunt, round faced, bending down - 
Cooing ven, ven, hija
Stretching out hands
etched in a map of black hairline cuts - 
the stamp of a forced year in the cane fields,
hacking her way out with a machete. 
And how willingly I took in her rough hands.

- Meg Medina  

Revelion y la Salsa!

Són Corazón