A celebrated Cuban choreographer who once filled Havana's most prestigious theaters now performs on street corners with neighborhood children, a stark illustration of how Cuba's deepening economic crisis is dismantling the island's once-vibrant public arts infrastructure and forcing cultural workers into survival mode.
Juan Miguel Mas, 60, founder of the acclaimed dance company Danza Voluminosa, has watched nearly three decades of work at venues like the 2,000-seat National Theater give way to makeshift performances in local streets and community spaces. His recent notification that his teaching contract with the National Theater of Cuba has been suspended underscores the broader collapse facing artists across the island.
The Human Cost of Cultural Collapse
Mas described how persistent blackouts, water outages, soaring costs and a lack of transportation have upended his daily life. But artists have been hit even harder by canceled shows, a lack of production budgets and a mass exodus from the cultural sector, he said. To supplement the modest income he makes working with children, Mas now leases a small area of his home for business use and hosts weekend garage sales featuring curated recycled clothing, tableware and household goods.
Since his sister and teenage nephew relocated to Spain last year, he has lived alone and managed his expenses by shopping at a local farmers' market two blocks away and using subsidized medications at a state-run pharmacy directly across the street. The personal toll reflects a national pattern: families separated by economic necessity, public servants forced into informal economies, and once-thriving institutions reduced to shadows of their former selves.
A Bleak Outlook for Public Culture
Essayist and arts journalist Michel Hernández said, "The outlook for the arts is complex and bleak," adding that Cuba's cultural spaces, once affordable and state-run, have deteriorated significantly and left artists with few venues beyond a handful of expensive private spaces. The shift from accessible public venues to costly private alternatives threatens to exclude working-class Cubans from cultural participation, both as artists and audiences.
Born in Havana in 1965, Mas trained under Laura Alonso, a renowned ballerina, and Ramiro Guerra, the father of contemporary dance on the island, and also studied with the Cuban-American dancer and choreographer Lorna Burdsall, who encouraged him to persevere despite discrimination from dance schools because he weighed 160 kilograms (352 pounds). He made his debut in 1996 with his own company, Danza Voluminosa, or Voluminous Dance, which remained active until 2024 and provided a home for dancers whose bodies diverged significantly from the industry's prevailing aesthetic norms.
Finding Purpose in Community
Despite the hardships, Mas remains committed to his homeland and his community. "I am very interested in staying in Cuba," he said, adding, "Were I to emigrate, I would lose contact with that 'Cubanness' that exists here, with the audience, the people, the folks next door." He also worked as an actor and starred in the 2025 fictional film "Cherri," based on his own life experiences.
On a recent morning, he walked six blocks to the Marianao district, where 30 children and their mothers awaited him. There, the group turned a street corner into a stage for a 90-minute performance in which the children, dressed as bees and other colorful characters, sang and danced. Mas said, "It's about bringing the knowledge of art to these children and lifting them out of a reality defined by conflict."
Why This Matters:
The collapse of Cuba's public cultural infrastructure represents more than the loss of entertainment venues—it threatens the social fabric that accessible arts programming helps sustain. When state-supported theaters close and artists lose contracts, working-class communities lose affordable cultural participation, children lose educational opportunities, and entire professions disappear into emigration or informal economies. Mas's turn to street performances with neighborhood children demonstrates both resilience and a troubling reality: without functioning public institutions and adequate support systems, even celebrated artists must choose between abandoning their craft, leaving their country, or improvising survival strategies that cannot replace the stable cultural ecosystem that once existed. The exodus from Cuba's cultural sector and the deterioration of once-affordable public spaces signal a broader failure to maintain the social infrastructure that makes artistic expression accessible to all, not just those who can afford private venues.