The project "Cóncavo - The Melody in the Word" is a cooperation between the Unión de escritores y artistas de Cuba (UNEAC, Spanish for National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba), Havana Club Cultura and No Boundaries e.V. in Berlin. In this spirit, the Cóncavo project was invited by the UNEAC to perform at the Festival Internacional de Musica Contemporánea in November 2016.

At the centre of the intercultural exchange, which is not content with a single performance, are upheavals and renewals, associated fears and hopes, current changes in Cuba but also in Germany. Musicians and singer-songwriters from both countries will enter into a dialogue across linguistic, social and societal boundaries, play with different genres and enter into conversation with each other through different forms of artistic expression, creating something new, working and making music together.

The basic themes - reconciliation, overcoming borders and breaking down walls and barriers - form the starting point for the artistic work and are the inspiration for new texts and music. The artists are to incorporate current events into their creations. In this way, the art also becomes a documentation of the times, a mirror of what is currently happening in Germany, Cuba and the world. The combination of text and contemporary music is the conceptual guideline of the project. This unity makes it possible to open up access to our multidimensional world.

We invite artists from both countries to participate in the project, where the dialogue will take place through music. Professional instrumentalists will meet songwriters, compose melodies and combine lyrics. The artist and initiator of the Shanghai Biennale Hu Xiangcheng will travel from China as a visual documenter. He will accompany the project graphically and draw what he experiences and feels. During workshops in Havana, the artists will be encouraged to play their own works, listen to their content/stories and fuse the two together in the workshops. From Germany, Pyranja as well as the trumpeter El Congo Allen will travel; the Chinese artist Hu Xangcheng as well as the poet Xiao Kayiu will arrive from Shanghai. From Cuba, the rapper Yimi Konklaze and the musicians Humberto Quijano (Cuba), Fabricio Pereira (Brazil) and Pupo Aguilera (Cuba) took part. At this workshop in Cuba, not only will existing texts and compositions be presented and further developed, but new works will also be created. The partners UNEAC and Havana Cultura have made their houses available as venues in Cuba. Concerts and workshops will take place at both venues. Havana Cultura is making the Museo del Ron available to us for rehearsals and workshops, but also for concerts.

Painting, installations, music, poetry, Hip Hop and new sounds!

The city of Havanna hosted our project "Concavo" in November 2016. Pyranja from Berlin, Xiao Kaiyu, Hu Xiangcheng from Shanghai worked together with the musician El Congo Allen and the three Cuban musicians. With new compositions and new lyrics and illustrations the artists will represent their new pieces at the Festival Internacional de Música contemporánea.

We are very much looking forward to our cooperation with Sylt Foundation, UNEAC and Havanna Cultura.

Sponsored by Goethe Institute and the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany - Havanna.

Between November 11th and November 16th, 2016 Artists from 3 continents have collaborated and created a beautiful evening at Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havanna!

No Boundaries e.V. is collaborating with Sylt Foundation in building bridges between the contemporary Cuban arts and  contemporary arts based in Germany and China.