Timbalaye: Rumba in Camagüey this summer
Running through August 30, the event features lectures, panel discussions, workshops, artistic performances, and community activities in the provincial capital, Florida, and Nuevitas, with the aim of contributing to the preservation of traditions that are an essential part of Cuban culture
Posted by Sol de Cuba, 27/08/2026
Starting on August 25, the city of Camagüey hosts he 18th edition of Timbalaye—La Ruta de la Rumba, an event dedicated to cimarronaje—an expression of resistance, identity, and African heritage—according to Prensa Latina news agency.
Through August 30, the event features conferences, panel discussions, workshops, artistic performances, and community activities in the provincial capital, Florida, and Nuevitas, with the aim of contributing to the preservation of traditions that are an essential part of Cuban culture.
According to press reports, the opening ceremony venue was the Ignacio Agramonte Park, a landmark site in this historic city, featuring performances by the Camagüey Folk Ballet Company, the Lianet Dance group, and soloist Anyeli Hernández Zayas, in a program that brings together heritage, music, and dance.
The Municipal Government hosts the temporary exhibition “Traditions and Legends” by visual arts instructor Iván Castillo Guerrero, while the Nicolás Guillén Foundation hosts the panel discussion “El Cimarronaje: A Different Perspective.”
The theoretical discussion brings together, among other specialists, Fernando Manso Alonso, Ph.D., president of the Camagüey branch of the Union of Historians of Cuba; Reinaldo Ángel Echemendia, director of the Camagüey Folk Ballet; and Yoelxy Pilliner López, president of the Provincial Committee of the Route of the Enslaved People Project.
Also participating is Wilmer Ferrán Jiménez, dancer, musician, and director of Rumbatá, the group that will headline the closing concert in the Plaza del Gallo, where a fashion show by the Turban Camagüey Project and an exhibition and sale by the Qué Negra project will also take place.
The 18th edition of Timbalaye will also be dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the publication of Biography of a Runaway Slave, by writer and researcher Miguel Barnet, a seminal work that explores the memories and experiences of enslaved people who secured their freedom through resistance, Prensa Latina concludes.
