Holguín opens Romerías de Mayo with parade, concert, and youth arts week

Holguín turned its center into a moving prologue for Romerías de Mayo as the PreRomerías march left Calixto García Park at 7 p.m. and headed toward Plaza de la Marqueta, where the Norberto Leyva Band was scheduled to play. The procession marked the opening of the festival’s 33rd edition and set the tone for a week in which the city’s streets, plazas, parks, and cultural institutions became part of the show.

The festival runs from May 2 through May 8 and is presented as the 33rd World Festival of Artistic Youth. It is organized by the Asociación Hermanos Saíz, with support from the Dirección Provincial de Cultura en Holguín, and this year is dedicated to the AHS’s 40th anniversary as well as Fidel Castro’s cultural thought on the centenary of his birth. Even with the country’s energy situation shaping the schedule, organizers kept the program broad, with the opening built around a traditional nocturnal parade and the promise of concerts, debates, and exhibitions spread across Holguín.

Memoria Nuestra remains one of the central points of the program, while young creators from Havana, Santiago de Cuba, Granma, and Guantánamo joined local participants in spaces such as Babel, Palabras Compartidas, Cámara Azul, Rockmerías, and Teatro Callejero. That range gives Romerías its particular pulse: audiovisual work, literature, visual arts, rock, hip hop, and street performance all share the same calendar, and the same city blocks. The event’s usual venues stayed in place, but with enough flexibility to combine them as needed, keeping the festival dense rather than scattered.

The structure also reflects what Romerías has become since its modern reinvention in May 1994 by the AHS. Over more than three decades, Holguín has used the festival to position itself as a capital of young art in Cuba, and the climb toward Loma de la Cruz still gives the celebration its symbolic spine. This year’s edition continues that formula, but with an even wider national footprint and the closing already announced for a concert by Isaac Delgado and his group, bringing the week of youth culture to a high-volume finish.