Cultural Authorities Cancel Juan Carlos Cremata’s Contract As A Theater Director / 14ymedio

Theater director Juan Carlos Cremata.
Theater director Juan Carlos Cremata

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Orlando Palma, Havana, 9 September 2015 — The contract of the director Juan Carlos Cremata has been cancelled by the Cuban cultural authorities, as explained by the author himself on Wednesday via email. Cremata has made public the details of meeting he was called to last Monday at the Havana Theater Center, in which he was told of the Ministry of Culture’s National Council of Performing Arts Resolution No. 10, in which his theater project El Ingenio [The Genius] was canceled and his contract as a theater director was terminated.

In a text entitled Condemned to Eternal Silence, or the Chronicle of an Announced Ordeal, the artist specifies that a decision of this nature means that he is “eliminated from any possibility of doing theater in Cuba.”

In the body of the resolution it says the director provoked an ethical-professional conflict with the management of the Theatre Center and the National Council for the Performing Arts, who legally represent and sponsor him.” According to the official explanation, Cremata made intemperate attacks on these institutions through the foreign press and social networks, incompatible with the social object for which the above-mentioned project was created, leading to a lack of confidence in the artist, all of which disqualified his projects as institutional interests.”

The authorities resolved to halt project El Ingenio Project, ending its sponsorship by the Theater Center. Furthermore, they added, the employment contract in the artistic branch of the Director Juan Carlos Cremata Malberti, will be terminated.”

In light of this opinion, the artist states, “Thus is censorship and the exercise of ‘freedom of expression’ legally consolidated in our country, in the 21st century.”

Cremata adds that, The measure was taken without consultation with the National Theater Awards or with other artist guilds. It was a simple vendetta. A calculated summary execution.”

The document is signed only by Marvin Yaquis, director of the Theater Center as employer of the artist, although Cremata identifies as directly responsible Gisela Gonzalez, president of the National Council for the Performing Arts.

“And so there is no mercy for those who think differently. “To the wall*” for those of us who refuse to remain silent. What will be the next step to finish burying me?” asks the film and theater director.