An audiovisual discourse that ties together the Florida Strait from one end to the other, a story where the characters love, enjoy, suffer, make mistakes, and live all the absurdities and profound quakes of our two nations. And in the middle of The Closest Farthest Away there is love that breaks out, cries, and jumps the obstacles. The sea is a metaphor and physical space in which love exists.

The curtain opens up before our eyes: Havana and Los Angeles intersect in a visual poem that replays batá drums and ferocious rap, mixing everything that unites and separates us. The American protagonist, “Amante,” is in the eclectic Havana and becomes part of a neighborhood street life in search of Ana. In search of Ana, only? A coin without a face returned to this city carrying many old memories. In the end, an encounter and a confusion. "What can we do if in the end we can never share the same hysical space?" yells Amante. But the sound of his voice is scarcely an audible echo as thousands of stars break out and each step touches thousands of years in time. The tidal wave hugs everyone, bringing people together and then it separating them. The sea crashes incessantly against the Havana sea wall. The foam that rises to the surface engulfs the young lovers. They seem foreign in the middle of so much chaos. But the wave brings them up high impetuously and protects them.

You hear a voice: "Cut!"

The Closest Farthest Away is an innovating project, a combination of cinema, theater, and multimedia. It utilizes video as a digital window to dialogue with an act on stage challenging the space and conventional time of film creating a world "impossible?" in which Cuban and American actors coexist on the same virtual stage. In the middle of so many misunderstandings to issue visas to Cuban artists, this video-projection creates a cultural bridge joining both sides of the Florida Strait with an intension to break the barriers that have been imposed between our two nations.

From this side of the Strait: Aleigh and Sage Lewis, amongst other American artists of The Closest Farthest Away, were in Cuba last December to realize part of the filming of the project. With them I talked about what motivated them to get involved in this audiovisual experiment. Luckily, I did not need to translate them:

"The Closest Farthest Away" says Sage as he shows me a drawing on the t-shirt, is open to multiple artistic viewpoints and we want many collaborations between Cubans and Americans to exist within and beyond that. This first work reveals the paradox that we live as Cubans and North Americans on both sides of the Florida Strait. Even if we are really close, and have many things in common, we are also very far away. With this play we intend to demonstrate that yes we can come closer, understand each other more, and have an exchange. We have wanted to do everything possible while respecting the laws so that no side gets angry. But there have been a lot of difficulties to realize the video.

Aleigh: "From the beginning we wanted the performance to be made by North American and Cuban artists, especially by young people between 25 and 35 years old; but we had a problem: Cuban artists aren't issued visas to come to the United States, and for us it is not simple to travel to Cuba. So it occurred to us that utilizing video we could achieve having Cuban artists act through a gigantic screen and the live North Americans could interact with them. From that is what generated so many new ideas."

But who are these young people who come searching and why do they have this obstinate curiosity with Cuba? What do they want to see? What interests them if in the end we're nothing more than a little island with a tremendous heat where the people have learned to live within urgency and hope, I wonder while I observe them speaking with such contagious enthusiasm, something from their youth.

Aleigh, 27 years old, was born in San Francisco, California. She's a filmmaker. Since she was little she liked to walk around with a camera, record images, and then edit them into art videos. Her companion, Sage, studied music composition receiving a Master's
degree from the California Institute of the Arts. In his studies he had the opportunity to specialize in experimenting with music for film, theater, and dance. Also, he directed two contemporary operas. "One of the purposes of the degree --he says-- was to acquire abilities in many different genres. For that he worked a lot in the concept of mixing things, of fusion, not only between different artistic mediums but also between diverse languages and cultures."

When I asked him where he learned Spanish, he told me in other countries and also in Cuba. In Cuba? "Yes, because I miss Cuba," he replies laughing. I thought this was his first trip to the island. "No, I've been here before and I always want to return..."

Caminos: What do you do in the project?

Sage: “Basically I bring together all the music; but I have also been a part of producing and above all, I have turned myself into a cultural promoter and organizer. I have worked hard so that this project moves forward: I have procreated putting the people in touch, the Cuban artists as much as the North American artists. It is a non-commercial project. This time we came together with five other artists from the US: a photographer, drum set player, actor, sound engineer, and theater director.”

Our limitations to travel to the United States and your limitations to travel to Cuba,have required the project to be made out of improvisation and creativity, to what measure has this limited the concept of the performance?

Sage: “The ideal would be if there weren't obstacles; but after insisting many times, we have achieved the permission to film, at least, everything we wanted to in Havana. In the beginning months of 2008 we will initiate the editing and staging of all the images. One of the intentions of the project is to demonstrate the absurdity of the laws that impede contact between the people of Cuba and the US."

Aleigh: "For this reason we have had to support ourselves with the virtuality as a technological support that not only permits communication and coming together but also functions as a mediator of feelings, sensations, experiences, and discoveries for the
characters, for whom it is impossible to exchange life stories through so many barriers. Of course, for the Cuban team and for us these limitations have forced us to grow, search for variants, improvise, be more creative..."

Caminos: How did you find out about the Martin Luther King Center?

Sage: "We already knew Conner Gorry, the companion of Joel Suarez, and she told us about the Center and the things that you guys do. And she told us that we couldn't leave Cuba without paying a visit."

Aleigh: "Also we believe that Project Por Amor and the Center for Martin Luther King have many points in common. We share a philosophy that is based in solidarity, union, and open unprejudiced communication and we hope that in the future we can continue strengthening these contacts."

According to Aleigh and Sage one of their early dreams was to travel to Cuba together and get to know our reality a little bit deeper. Thanks to the Pastors for Peace Caravan and the obstinate stubbornness of these young artists, they were able to make it a reality. "Something that we have really liked a lot-- they say in unison-- is to have involved the Caravan, because they gave us a decisive support to be able to transport all the technical equipment that we needed for the film shoot, including a 1984 Mercedez Benz that was brought all the way from Los Angeles through the Mexican border. All the equipment was donated to the Movimiento Nacional de Video, who facilitated the contact with Cuban artists and technicians with whom we are very happy to have been able to work with."

Caminos: And what will the future be of The Closest Farthest Away?

Sage: "We want to present it in Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, and New York; and then our big dream is to be able to bring it to the Havana International Theater Festival this coming September."

Aleigh: "As they say in Cuba, we'll ask Yemayá and Elegguá to open up the future."