obini

According to a recent article by The Washington Post, women in Cuba are unprecedentedly rising in the world of percussion.

The Post states that women were shut out of rehearsal spaces and barred from using batá drums belonging to the National Folkloric Ensemble, because they were “perceived as too weak for the physical demands of drumming.”

But now things are changing, thanks in part to the bold acts of Eva Despaigne, the director of Cuba’s first all-female batá orchestra Obini Batá.

“I threw myself into the unknown,” Despaigne told the Washington Post. “I have suffered many headaches.”

Read the full article here.