Emporium of legend and traditions, the city treasures an arsenal of historical centers, buildings, sites, objects and artistic manifestations that have become part of the Cuban cultural heritage.
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The Santiago of Spiritus
Santiago is possibly the oldest and most dynamic of the festive traditions, distinguished in the wide spectrum of popular expressions promoted for more than three centuries. Since the 19th century it has been defined as an urban festival, however, the characteristics that distinguish it are exactly the same as those that identify rural festivities.
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Colonial music
Music was undoubtedly one of the most widespread manifestations in this town. With the founding in Sancti Spíritus of the first typical Cuban orchestra in 1806 by Pedro Valdivia, known as Pedro Gálvez, a new musical stage began that continues to rise with the organization of other orchestras, among them, that of Pablo Cancio.
In 1872 a moment arose in which the patriotic feeling of Sancti Spiritus rose through singing in tenths, that although poetry and the rules of meter were conspicuous by their absence, its patriotic soul vibrated in all its energy. In this way, the “lira manigüera”, mambí pride, arises in the land of Yayabo.
Another important moment in the development of Cuban song in Sancti Spíritus in the 19th century is the contribution of the rhythmic pattern supported by the dances and habaneras that proliferated so much in the town. The Sancti Spiritus serenade will constitute, twinned with the troubadour peñas, the social artistic event where the song and particularly the bolero will be developed.
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The city of murals
The Sancti Spiritus muralism has very particular features as it does not respond to a homogeneous ideo-aesthetic movement or trend that qualifies it. Rather, they are intermittent pulsations caused by a group of plastic artists from different promotions that add to the construction boom of the city that in the last two decades of the 20th century has energized its urban and real estate structures. Based on personal experiences and differentiated tastes, it has been possible to weave a network of murals scattered throughout the city, breaking all logical placement schemes.
The repeated use of construction materials underlines the sense of belonging of the artists who, faced with the impossibility of applying adequate mural techniques, preferred to resort to what is abundant in the town. Sancti Spíritus has, since the colonial period, a local industry of construction materials made essentially with mud, the foundation of its construction system.