# Cuban artists William Ruiz Morales and Gabriela Burdsall organize online festival in New York

**Date:** 07/15/2020

William Ruiz Morales and Gabriela Burdsall are a couple of Cuban artists living in New York who combine artistic creation with cultural activism. A playwright and dancer, together with a team of collaborators, they develop "Living Away", an online arts festival that combines diverse artistic manifestations where, from July 20 to 26, creators from around the world will gather to celebrate human mobility beyond the limitations of borders and nationalities.

This couple of artists felt the need to create a platform that would respond to the needs of a group of artists in New York and other parts of the world.

The idea is that they are not interested in the 'personal struggle' to access programming spaces in the city. They were more interested in generating those spaces and sharing them with a community of people who frequently do not have the possibility of accessing the work of creators who may be close to them in terms of culture, nationality or interests.

They named it "Living Away" to define a circumstance shared by the artists who participate in the platform. Its creators are interested in supporting especially artists who are somehow living far from their place of origin.
Right now, for example, it has to do with the circumstance of distance everywhere. Offering on this platform a space for Cuban artists from our diaspora. People who continue working in London, Berlin, Madrid, Miami, Chile and New York, of course. But there are also artists like choreographers Naima Mazic (Austria) and Kim-Sahn Chau (Canada), who have developed profoundly international work.