History
In 1959 Fidel Castro successfully lead a revolution that prevailed against the dictatorship that had previously held power over the island nation. Following his success, Castro became the leader of a new Communist Cuban government and began to implement socialist ideas. Among these ideas was a call for culture to be spread as freely and equally as any other resource. To accomplish this, government support was poured into organizations that promoted and distributed cultural capitol with the caveat that they were overseen by government organizations. While this enabled perhaps previously unknown access to the arts by rural and low-income citizens, it also meant that cultural forms, practices, and values were being altered to adhere to the socialist government and the revolutionary ideology. The Conjunto Folklorico Nacional is one such artistic organization that was used by the government to dispense a form of culture that was heavily influenced by revolutionary ideas (Berry 2010; “Cuban Revolution - HISTORY” 2021).
Photo from “Cuban Revolution - HISTORY.” 2021. 2021. https://www.history.com/topics/latin-america/cuban-revolution.
Revolutionary ideas concerned several points relating to the socialist society that Castro and his government were trying to build. One such idea was a communal work ethic as the rush for the Ten-Million-Ton sugar harvest commenced. Cultural groups such as the National Ballet were engaged in active fieldwork as an example that boosted worker morale and encouraged dedication to the objectives of the state despite the problems that were becoming evident (Tomé 2017). The Conjunto Folklórico Nacional served another revolutionary idea, that of a colorblind and classless society. Significant social divisions existed between Cubans based on race. In the late nineteenth century, there was an overt discourse about how black Cubans were “inferior”; in the 1940s and 1950s music, dance, and other cultural aspects related to Afro-Cuban culture were viewed as “distasteful” (Moore 2006, 4–5). There was a push by Castro’s government to desegregate and deconstruct race in the larger Cuban society. But in doing so they failed to acknowledge the deep-rooted social perspectives on race that continued in the hush that the government had imposed on all discussions of race (Moore 2006). Altering policy can influence what we see on the surface, yet it will not uproot the engrained social inequities that had become entrenched in society. The Conjunto Folklorico emerged with the push of the revolutionary government to embrace Afro-Cuban culture as part of the larger Cuban identity (Moore 2006, 6).
Photo shows spread in Bohemia magazine. The work of the dancers in the field was a symbol of the New Man in Cuba (Tomé 2017). Photo from “Swans in Sugarcane fields: Proletarian Ballet Dancers and The Cuban Revolution's Industrious New Man” by Lester Tomé.
Although there was a present effort to embrace Afro-Cuban culture, there remained a bias that continued to influence the organization and the art it performed. Salaries for those in the Conjunto Folklorico were low when compared to other artists and support from the government was influenced by the prejudice of officials (Schwall and Moreira, n.d.; Moore 2006). There was the belief that folklore was something for the “black and poor” of society (Mansfield 2021).