MIAMI, United States. – The Cuban theater company El Ciervo Encantado announced on Facebook that it will stop “belonging and having a working relationship” with the Havana Theater Center, the National Council of Performing Arts and the Ministry of Culture (MINCULT) of Cuba, a decision that it attributed to its founders, Nelda Castillo and Mariela Brito and that it would have “the support of the artists” that make up the group.
The group also assured that it would not continue to “subject” its “work to the rules, regulations and evaluation and approval mechanisms practiced by these institutions” and reported that, as of that decision, El Ciervo Encantado will no longer reside at the headquarters of Línea y 18 in Vedado.
“THANK YOU to everyone who has accompanied us to this point along the way, and to those who will continue to do so in this new stage,” the publication reads. “This 2026, El Ciervo turns 30, and we will celebrate it with the joy of having a genuine work, which we will continue to share and take care of,” he concludes.
The announcement comes after several public episodes in which the group has denounced censorship decisions or cancellations linked to state cultural institutions. In April 2023, Castillo herself reported on Facebook that the projections of the docufiction The managerby Ricardo Figueredo; the documentary Fito’s Havanaof Juan Pin Vilar; and the documentary There areby Fernando Fraguela and Yulier Rodríguez, had been “cancelled due to the disapproval of the Ministry of Culture.”
“We totally disagree with this decision and firmly express our disagreement with this act of censorship without explanations towards artists whose works dignify and shape Cuban culture,” the theater company denounced at that time.
In this regard, several Cuban media indicated that the National Council of Performing Arts would have acted “in alliance with State Security” in canceling the screenings.
Founded in 1996, El Ciervo Encantado has been defined as a project with an experimental vocation and an interdisciplinary crossover that integrates theater, visual arts, music, literature, dance and research. In its public presentation, the group states that it develops “a unique and disturbing poetics” and that its proposals move away from “traditional theatrical language”, which is why it moves in an area where ritual, performance and other contemporary forms.
The headquarters it occupied until now was inaugurated in April 2014.
