The Cuban choreographer Rosario Cárdenas, National Dance Award winner, published a message on Facebook this month from Havana in which she harshly described the conditions in which she and her company are trying to continue working: without electricity, without water, without transportation, and without access to basic medical services such as an X-ray.
The testimony from Cárdenas on social media summarizes in a few lines the state of collapse that permeates cultural and daily life on the island. “Working twice as hard when there isn’t even the basics, all while being filled with uncertainty. No electricity, no water, no transportation, unable to get an X-ray for the pain in a bone... and continuing on, and on, without being able to cool off from the heat or enjoy the beauty of our faded landscapes... The situation doesn’t end, it intensifies. We don’t know how we will manage tomorrow,” he wrote.
The message is not directed at the regime or the authorities, but rather inward toward their own artistic community: it is a recognition of the collective effort of those who continue to create despite everything. "If there is one thing that resonates deeply within me, it is the shared effort of each one of us, all together, trying to reach what we can and to work and create on that edge drawn by exhaustion and uncertainty... together in such harsh, unimaginable conditions for these times," he added.
Cárdenas concluded his publication with a phrase of gratitude towards his collaborators and dancers: "All my respect and admiration for each of you. Thank you for existing and for working with such honor when everything is lacking."
Founder of the Compañía Rosario Cárdenas —established in 1989 under the name Danza Combinatoria and renamed in 2003— the artist received the National Dance Award in 2013, the highest recognition in the sector in Cuba. In January of this year, she premiered the work Siempre vuelvo. Visitaciones a Belkis Ayón at the Covarrubias Hall of the National Theater of Cuba, featuring 14 performers.
His voice joins a long list of Cuban artists and intellectuals who have publicly denounced the impact of the crisis on their work in 2026. The musician Israel Rojas acknowledged that power outages make it difficult to rehearse and record, while Carlos Alfonso and Ele Valdés from Síntesis described the situation as a “mass psychological torture”. Actor Luis Alberto García reported three days and three nights without electricity in July, and a Cuban writer described seven consecutive days without power just before the publication of Cárdenas.
The backdrop is the worst energy crisis that Cuba has experienced in decades. So far in 2026, the country has recorded at least seven total blackouts from the National Electric System. For peak hours this Saturday, the Electric Union projected a deficit of 2,280 MW, with only 1,050 MW available against a maximum demand of 3,300 MW. Some areas have experienced up to 87 consecutive hours without electricity.
The electrical crisis is dragging down the collapse of the water supply —87% of the pumping system depends on electricity— leaving more than 500,000 people in Havana without regular access to drinking water. The UN warned in May 2026 that the due to fuel shortages, power outages, and economic pressures, directly affecting health, food, and water.
The Assembly of Cuban Filmmakers denounced in March a systematic repression against critical intellectuals and artists, making each public statement an act that goes beyond mere complaint: it is also a gesture of resistance. Cárdenas summed it up with the phrase that accompanies his signature: “Dance is an ephemeral multisensory landscape. In it, I inscribe what simultaneously erases itself.”
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