Aquiles has obsessively favoured scrap material from the bodywork of old cars or containers of the most varied types to make small walking human figures, or perfectly flattened squares grouped according to an impeccable arrangement. He has not abandoned canvas, however, using a combination of techniques to produce an abstract work where graffiti connotes the emotional impact in the direction that the artist is interested in.
This song and dance genre, entirely different from the Spanish bolero from which it only borrowed the name, became consolidated during the second half of the 19th century in Santiago de Cuba marked by the accompaniment of a guitar. It is said that the first bolero was Tristezas (1883) by Santiago-born composer José 'Pepe' Sánchez, while the genre took hold of Havana in the early 20th century, when trovadores Sindo Garay, Alberto Villalón and Rosendo Ruiz, just to mention a few, moved to the capital. During the 1920s, this genre was incorporated into the repertoire of danzón orchestras with the resulting instrumental enrichment. During the 30s and 40s, with Aquellos ojos verdes (1929) by composer Nilo Menéndez, boleros with piano accompaniment became very popular, and later on, boleros
played by the so-called 'conjuntos' (groups, ensembles), which included piano, double bass, bongo, conga drum, guitar, trumpet and singers who played maracas and claves during their performance. Towards the end of the 1940s, the creators of a movement called filin, who incorporated jazz elements to the Cuban song, reintroduced the guitar as accompaniment in boleros which have become classics, such as César Portillo de la Luz's Contigo en la distancia, whose colloquial style would break a certain rhetoric which dominated the genre. Having become widespread to other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, and having produced outstanding composers and performers, the bolero, updated with new sounds and expressive means, or conceived within the most traditional pattern, continues being a favourite romantic genre.
| Cuban Bolero |
| by CubaAbsolutely Team |
