Guantanamo.- For their outstanding work as dancers, teachers of new generations, and continuers of the legacy of the emblematic Ballet Floklórico Babul Company, Jorge Rancol Céspedes and Juan Carlos Correoso Iznaga were awarded the Elfriede Mahler Honorary Provincial Dance Award, granted by the Guantánamo Performing Arts Council.
The award ceremony took place at the Bajo La Ceiba gathering in José Martí Park, where both members of the Babul Folkloric Ballet received this provincial honor in recognition of their dedication to the professional dance movement in Guantánamo and their work as internationalists in the Bolivarian nation of Venezuela.
The director of the Culture sector in the province, Yoelvys Labañino López, accompanied by Lídice Fraga Írsula, Head of the Ideological Department of the Provincial Party Committee, and Virgen Speck Rodríguez, President of the Council of Performing Arts, presented the award during the celebration of International Dance Day in Guantánamo on April 29.
Also within this context, the Guantánamo dance masters Ernesto Llewelín de La Hera and Ladislao Navarro Tomasén were honored for their recent awards of the Lázaro Peña Order, granted by the Central Organization of Cuban Workers (CTC). Navarro Tomasén was also recognized with the 2026 Lorna Burdsall Award, conferred by the Association of Performing Artists of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC).
Similarly, as part of the event, the culmination of the 13th Raquel Balón In Memoriam Dance Season at the Rubén López Sabariego House of Culture, the Franco-Haitian group “Renacer Cossiá,” which carries on Franco-Haitian traditions, was recognized for its 25th anniversary. The honor was received by art instructor Orbis Morgan, leader of this project.
The casts of the territory’s dance companies and projects, together with the Amateur Artists Movement of this specialty, starred with their choreographic representations of contemporary, modern and folkloric syles, in Bajo La Ceiba gatheirng, dedicated especially to International Dance Day from the central José Martí park in the city of Guantánamo.
