Havana City Guide - events

Havana Carnival
Parades and street parties, colourful costumes, wild dancing and traditional music. Cubans really know how to throw a party and for several weeks each year they do, the fun and frolics reaching high levels over weekends when the locals put their toil and trouble away and bring out the rum. Carnival comes with some traditions, like effigies of well known people being paraded along the coastal road, the Malecon, and the gaudy 'faroleros', decorated lamp posts carried aloft by dancers.
Venue: El Malécon promenade
Date: August 2008, TBC
Website:

Havana Biennial
First held in 1984 as a political exercise to showcase Third World visual arts for First World art tourists, the Havana Biennial has proved itself a worthy event attracting dozens of artists who exhibit their works over a two-month period in the Cuban capital. In recent years the art fest has been dogged by withdrawal of sponsorship because of a government crackdown on cultural freedom, and censorship. The dates are therefore continually moving, but the exhibition continues to be held every two or three years, the last event having taken place in November 2003.
Venue: Several galleries and sites in Havana's old colonial centre
Date: To be confirmed
Website:

International Jazz Festival
Held every two years, Havana's feast of jazz is eagerly awaited by fans around the world, offering four days of concerts, jam sessions and workshops. Many artists travel to Cuba to perform without any remuneration, the event having gained a prestigious reputation for quality and good organisation. Star of the show is Cuba's own Chucho Valdes, who usually performs with other local artists and international guests in the grand finale concert on the final night.
Venue: Various concert halls in downtown Havana, with impromptu jam sessions in the streets
Date: November/December 2008, TBC
Website: