Havana, June 29 (RHC)—The 9th Congress of the Cuban Artists and Writers Association –UNEAC- began Friday evening with a gala dedicated to legendary ballerina Alicia Alonso and Cuba’s National poet Nicolás Guillén. The Cuban capital’s Martí Theater hosted the tribute to the Cuban prima ballerina assoluta and the organization’s founding president.

Under the slogan ‘There is no possible freedom without culture’, the 9th UNEAC Congress is scheduled to run at the Conference Center June 29/30 to mark a starting point for a new work stage in arts and culture and their relation with society. The congress closes a previous extensive debate which took place all over the island at the organization’s different provincial branches as June last year, characterized by a an intense renovation of the organization’s leaders who’ve been replaced by younger ones in search for fresh ideas.

The Congress is discussing artistic creation and its relationship with institutions, the upgrading of art teaching, the social projection of art and culture and UNEAC’s presence at territorial initiatives, among others issues. The event provides an ideal space to strengthen dialogue among creators, cultural institutions and society in general, focusing on the relationship between culture and education; culture and the nation’s tangible and intangible heritage and culture and society. UNEAC - set up by Nicolás Guillén in 1961- is made up of nine thousand members, has branches all over the country’s provinces, encourages and upholds arts and intellectual creation in Cuba.