• Submitted by: manso
• Arts and Culture
• 08 / 26 / 2011

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By: Raquel Maria Garcia Alvarez. Havana, Aug 25 (Prensa Latina) Groups, musicians and experts from Mexico, Italy, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Guatemala and Uruguay are expected to take part in the Timbalaye Festival 2011 that will fill Havana streets with rumba in September 1-6. In a press conference, president of the event Ulises Mora said that the festival will be a bright opportunity for musicians to showcase all the expressions of this rhythm that is deeply rooted in the Cuban people's identity.

The program of the festival will include workshops on dance and percussion, open-air concerts, audiovisual materials and jam sessions by major Cuban rumba groups like Los Papines, Columbia del Puerto and Tata Guines, Jr.

For the third time, the public will be able to enjoy performances by the Tammumba project, led by rumba musicians from Naples, Italy, who will join Cuban percussionists.

A theoretical panel about this musical trend that emerged in the 19th Century will also be held by Cuban ethnologist Miguel Barnet and musicologists Maria Teresa Linares and Cary Diez.

The festival will be held in Havana on September 1-4 and then go to Matanzas province, the cradle of rumba.

Cuban group Los Munequitos de Matanzas (a Latin Grammy laureate 2001) will close the event with a workshop on dance and percussion.

The objective of the Timbalaye Festival, founded in 2007, is to show the cultural heritage of rumba as an original expression of Afro-Cuban roots in Latin American music.