Cuba: Steel Band Music in Int’l Caribbean Festival

Cuba: Steel Band Music in Int'l Caribbean FestivalSantiago de Cuba, Jul 8. -A steel band jam in Cespedes Park will give a lively, colorful touch to the 31st International Caribbean Caribbean Festival, underway for the past week in eastern Cuba.Music groups from El Cobre, Havana and Trinidad and Tobago will perform today in what is also known as the Festival of Fire, dedicated this year to the culture of Trinidad and Tobago.

The festival ends Saturday.

The international colloquium "El Caribe que nos Une" (The Caribbean which unites us) also concludes today, amid events such as a country fiesta and a community arts activity.

A festivity called El Gran Gaga, of Haitian origin, and performances in honor of the deity Yemaya are also part of Friday's activities.

On Saturday, a meeting on rumba will be held, and the festival will close in the afternoon with the presentation of the mpaka, a symbol of popular religiosity, to Martinique, to whom the next festival will be dedicated.

The closing ceremony will be the popular ritual La Quema del Diablo (The Burning of the Devil), with performances by folk groups and the opening of an aquatic carnival on La Alameda avenue by the bay. (Prensa Latina)