Our next stop was Cuba.
Let me just start by saying Oh My God, Cuba. Didn’t expect to fall in love with a country so quickly. Didn’t expect to find such cool and open artistic expression in a strictly controlled communist country, didn’t expect the tamales to make my head spin, didn’t expect to find the old buildings and 1950’s cars so beautiful, and the not-hating-Americans-as-much-as-we-were-raised-to-think people so fascinating and kind.
If given the chance, would I go back and spend the rest of my life in Cuba? Yes, I would.
We arrived in Havana on the 13th of October. And it was WET. It rained the first five days we were there, which we were told was uncommon in Cuba. We filmed a lot of children (and adults, including ourselves) playing in mud puddles, running through the torrent, and just looking straight-up soggy all over town. There wasn’t much street art to be found during the rain, though. 
When it finally dried up, we did manage to find a few musicians nestled away on side streets in a downtown area near the expensive and famous Buena Vista Social Club. The musicians we found were entertaining. They played charming and rhythmic music that is typical of Cuban culture. It was danceable music that was fun and culturally relevant, but not ‘blow you away’ original or creative. That didn’t come until later.
The next day we did find Blow You Away Good in the form of the most amazing street show we’d had the luck to stumble upon so far. Giganteria (YouTube, Facebook) is a Cuban theater group of about 14 performers, replete with stilt-walkers, drummers, jugglers, giant puppets controlled with bamboo sticks, amazing costumes, and painted faces.
We first met up with Giganteria at their practice space/dressing room in a beautiful Victorian-looking custard-colored building with extremely high ceilings and steep, ornamental, winding staircases (one of which we’d watched a woman on stilts expertly descend…ON STILTS. I held my breath the whole time).
We filmed the performers getting ready for their show. This was almost as dazzling as the show itself. Their space was full of cool stuff: giant heads, skeletons, small shrines dedicated to something otherworldly (the goddess of the stage, maybe?), and so much stage clothing – hats, costumes, and fanciful-looking shoes – that it was like being in a Terry Gilliam movie.
When the performers were ready, we followed them down to the street to see what they would do. We were not disappointed. Giganteria traveled around town, taking up the WHOLE street while they performed. They managed to collect an ever-growing audience that traveled with them as they moved through neighborhoods, ending with a large and very engaged group of spectators. A small dancing El Diablo woman, one of their crew, ran around, made grotesque or silly faces at people’s cameras, and held out her little black paw for donations. The show was so impressive, the performers certainly deserved payment. Everyone else thought so too.
After the show, we asked them how they did, and we were told that each member of Giganteria made about 40 CUC a piece, which is a huge amount once converted to Pesos National.
