Costa attended the inauguration of an exhibit of photos and string puppets opened to public audience at the Pedro Esquerre Art Gallery in Matanzas, 62 miles east of Havana. The workshop will conclude on April 27.

She told Prensa Latina that puppetry is a 200-year-old Brazilian tradition passed through generations by traveling artists.

This exhibition is the result of her research in provinces of northeast Brazil (Pernambuco, Rio Grande del Norte, Paraiba and Ceara) where she lived for six months.

Mamulengo is performed by workers, farmers and townspeople, and their art is a double form of survival: economic and of the soul, she explained.

By using these puppets, they express their desires, dreams and also reflect their attitudes toward change in life and society. It is a social phenomenon of encounter, she said.

(PL)