This poetry collection was written by Leslie Cunningham as a way of holding history in her hands when the archives were incomplete. These poems carry memory, inheritance, and the echo of performance—tracing the life of Harlem in Havana through language, rhythm, and feeling.
PHOTOS
This online gallery was curated as a visual archive of what remains and what resurfaces. Each image holds a fragment of performance history—glamour, labor, movement, and the quiet architecture of Black and Afro-Caribbean stage worlds.
MUSIC
A single song by Joni Mitchell lives here as a companion to the work. It moves through this story like memory itself—carrying tone, emotion, and an unseen thread between past and present.
BOOKS
The Brown Skin Showgirl photography books were created as an extension of this documentary world. They gather image and narrative into form—offering another way of seeing the women, stages, and histories that shaped this legacy. They continue the work of preservation through print.
SCREENPLAY
This screenplay is still becoming. It grows out of the documentary film Harlem in Havana, translating lived history into cinematic language—where memory, imagination, and truth meet on the page.
HARLEM IN HAVANA PROJECT 