Biennial art festival transforms Cuban capital
May 11, 1:39 PM EDT
Biennial art festival transforms Cuban capital
By PETER ORSI
Associated Press
HAVANA (AP) -- Giant ants swarm the facade of an aging theater. White-clad, face-painted dancers and circus performers frolic on a central boulevard. Cuban and American chefs serve gourmet cross-cultural meals from a boxy shipping-container kitchen.
Havana's always bustling streets are even more colorful than usual these days, with Friday's kickoff of the Cuban capital's Bienal art festival.
Crews installed sculptures along city's famous seawall, galleries hung paintings and citywide performance pieces delighted art lovers, tourists and residents tickled to stumble onto the unexpected.
One Cuban artist laid out a wax dummy of Osama bin Laden on a Persian rug and, shortly after the one-year anniversary of the al-Qaida leader's killing by U.S. forces, questioned whether there's more to the story.
"Is he dead or is he alive? Where is he? Who knows?" Julio Lorent said. "Only through art can we answer these uncertainties."
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