Los Cossiá, a music-dance group, celebrates its 45th anniversary of foundation, by Ángel Megret and Dolores Casimir Bancol (a Haitian citizen). Since then, it has been a faithful representative of Haitian culture in Guantánamo, with awards that endorse it as a representative of the local traditions.
The initial idea was to bring together individuals and people of Haitian descent who had the artistic skills and knowledge to form a group with the necessary quality to become national representatives of the group’s expressions.
The group’s first performance was in 1981, almost uninterruptedly at the Festival of the Culture of Performing Arts, of Caribbean origin, held in Santiago de Cuba, an event later known as the Festival del Caribe.
The first steps were not easy; the health of Casimir Bancol, then director, was not the best, and she decided to appoint Aurora Pie Yan as her successor, a worthy successor, with the appropriate training to lead the group in a new direction while respecting the principles under which it was founded.
As generations pass by, which welcome and continue the legacies, the group began to integrate Jamaican and Cuban descendants.
Changing times and new generations did not tarnish the reputation that the Los Cossiá have earned as a bearer of Franco-Haitian culture. Throughout its 45 years, the group has earned for recognition from foreign companies and Guantanamo filmmakers seeking to highlight the diversity of cultural heritage and its full spectrum of values of the province and the nation.
Among its many awards are the 2017 Provincial Heritage Award, granted to institutions, individuals, or groups that excel in the preservation, promotion, and research of popular culture, and the Memoria Viva Award from the Juan Marinello Cuban Institute for Cultural Research, among other recognitions.
