CAMAGÜEY.- There is a building on Industria Street, on the corner with San José, inhabited by the good work of the traditional rhythms. It is the home of the Folkloric Company Camagua, which has given prestige to the culture of Camagüey and Cuba from the most distant stages. About the giant steps and the “mechanism” that form it, says the director, Fernando Medrano Vireya. He talks about the group as a big family.

The background of this dance and music institution were seeded by Maraguán, group of the University in this city, Ignacio Agramonte Loynaz. In the year 2011, most of its members decided to take the professional leap with the foundation of Camagua, name of a tree representative of our Cuban fields.

After almost a decade retracing prosceniums and delighting the most various audiences, “the Company” has come to a maturity. “Yes, but our renovation is constant”, says Medrano, and then he sentences: “Here we all have grown up. The young people that join us add a lot of coolness and keep alive a group of our features.

“We want to do the dramatization work without loosing the essence of folklore, the neatness and exact synchronization of the dancers. Discipline is our main guideline. Without it we accomplish nothing”, claims Fernando while, in the practice room, the dancers perform their training routines.

During the summer months, Camagua gave an extensive tour around Europe. In 66 days they spread their talent in 11 events, and over a hundred activities, in Belgium, France, Spain, Hungry, Italy and Slovenia. The competence was not easy. They shared the stage with traditional companies of 42 nations that also offered brilliant shows.

Although the struggle for the first positions was complex, the Cuban delegation left their marks. Their wonderful performances made them earn the Jeux Folklorolimpiques Cup 2019 and the one of artistic excellence, in the Spectacles du Monde de Port Sur Seone, in France. Another meaningful moment was receiving the Oscar in Folklore to best choreography, received in the Festival Mondiale de Castello de Gorizia, in Italy.

Behind every award, there are efforts and intense hours: “We have a working schedule from Monday to Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The program for the dancers includes lessons of fitness, dance and folklore techniques. Then the daily rehearsals start”.

A hard work guarantees quality performances; however, Medrano still remembers, both incredulous and amused, the end of the important festival celebrated in 2003, in Dijon, France. “According to the judgment of the jury, the group did not get the golden medal because they were too perfect. But we went back in 2007 and then no one was able to take the golden medal away from us”.

Without the backup of a competent teaching staff, the progress would not have been the same. One can infer from the words of the director his satisfaction for sharing with the other teachers the taste for the aesthetic and perfect, to the smallest details, of the choreographies. He expresses how them and the musicians have increased their expertise with the negative and positive experiences that they have come across.

“As we are a sociocultural project, we teach a children dancing group from the elementary school Josué País and, besides, we have another one made of young people. Most of those who have started in the first steps have come to the professional level. We want to keep this initiatives alive, even in the current context, where the rhythms that we play emulate with genres like reggaeton. There is our reservoir”, Medrano responds convinced.

A tour around the different spaces of the building reinforces the idea of a focused staff. In the practice room they do stretching exercises, a commanding voice orders “do 20 push-ups”, then they adopt a posture for strengthening the legs. In the little sewing shop you can hear the buzzing of a sewing machine. Yes, the costumer Eida Costilla Mola and the seamstress María del Pino Fernández repair, make and take care of the appearance that, likewise, is a part of the show.

“As our next challenges we will perform for some time in the theater Julio Antonio Mella, in the capital and, further on, we will attend the diverse appointments in the Old Continent”, expresses Fernando. For what I saw and know, there will be no problems in this tasks, if discipline and familiarity continue as the inspiration of Camagua.