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On September 9, Guantanamo native Rosa Chac\u00f3n del R\u00edo, affectionately known as La Chacona, passed away in Havana. She was the most resilient chang\u00fcisera, not only for breaking competition records for the longest chang\u00fc\u00ed in Cuba, with more than 22 hours of dancing the authentic rhythm of her land, but also for all the trials of life that she overcame with admirable tenacity and charisma.<\/p>\n
Despite facing multiple adversities, Rosa never stopped fighting for her life, including a prolonged stay in the intensive care unit at the Miguel Enr\u00edquez Surgical Teaching Hospital in Havana due to an ischemic stroke that caused her death.<\/p>\n
Since her birth on November 8, 1959, in Rancho Grande, a mountain community in the municipality of El Salvador, La Chacona and her large family of ten siblings listened to the strains of Guantanamo peasant music, becoming over time a revered representative of this syncopated genre, which speaks to the soul and history of her land.<\/p>\n
The big Chac\u00f3n Del R\u00edo family, as well as the residents of Chang\u00fciseros in Cuba and abroad, will always remember La Chacona at the gathering dedicated to her mother, Distinia Del R\u00edo Santo, a celebration held at Alto de la Bandera in the San Justo neighborhood, where she lived much of her life and strengthened family ties and the fabric of Guantanamo culture.<\/p>\n
There, in her modest home, before an altar, offerings of fresh flowers and a sincere prayer to the Virgin of Charity, Rosa welcomed important exponents of the genre invited to the Elio Rev\u00e9 Matos National Chang\u00fc\u00ed Festival: Odelkis Rev\u00e9, Elito Rev\u00e9 and his orchestra, the American musician and researcher Benjam\u00edn Lapidus, and all the traditional music groups in the territory, who dedicated songs to her and her monumental body.<\/p>\n