It doesn't tell you what you should be interested in.

It gives you a choice to be interested in all those things.

And generally you're going to find that people are excited about everything that's there.

You know, in English we say, what is hip?

That's what Fabrica is.

It kind of helps to find what is hip in a really creative way.

And a way that's constructive makes people feel better about themselves at the end of a long evening of talking and drinking and dancing.

Maybe there's not a word yet to describe what a space like that is, where there's so much happening, because you're right there are other things that we put into boxes.

This is a museum.

This is a theater.

But what about just a space where people come together to appreciate.

So one of the trips we took as part of the Biennial was to Cuba in February of 2017.

And we took 35, 40 people to Havana, and it was really just opening up again.

And it was a fantastic journey.

We spent time not just talking to politicians and businesspeople, but spent most of our time with creative artists and musicians.

We had dinners on rooftops.

It was just really a celebratory and and fantastic event.

We all remember it as a special, special trip.

Everything was orchestrated to feed the senses, the smells, what you saw, what you heard.

It was music.

It was art.

We went to Fabrica de Arte and spent several hours there with Sandra, and X Alfonso.

I always wanted to have a name like X Alfonso.

I thought I should be like, “Y” Hickenlooper or something... anyway?

Or “Y” John.

But they were so generous and so creative and I still have a beautiful color photograph on metal and in our bedroom that I brought back from Cuba that we purchased and the entire experience was a revelation to see how Cuba was not what we read about in the newspapers, that there was a level of creativity and joy and and really emotional prosperity that we hadn't experienced.

It was amazing.

We all fell in love with Fabrica.

We could not believe the amount of creativity, of innovation of ability to reuse this old olive oil factory in El Vedado to make it an amazi sort of surprising box of all kinds of gens of art, whether it's visual, whether it's dance, whether it's music, whether it's theater.

It was probably the best thing we did in Havana And we went to the ambassador's residence.

We did a lot of the main stuff, but that was probably the best thing we did.

We experienced the art, the music, the energy.

And right there on the spot, we decided we have to bring them to Denver.

We have to bring this to Denver.

So that started the process of preparing for what we called Havana Nights in the fall of 2017.

Here we just witnessed Acosta Danza, one of the most amazing dance shows I've ever seen.

To take something that is so unique and essential... Cuba and bring it out of Cuba to Colorado.

I mean, that in itself is hard to imagine how you do it.

Then you have the issues between the government of the United States and the government of Cuba and the problems they're getting that the visas.

I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge what a challenge it is to work through the visa process, to work through United States Citizenship and immigration, even for the idea of bringing internationally acclaimed artists to the US.

We were literally going door to door around Denver looking for buildings that we thought could mimic what Fabrica was in El Vedado X saw the vision and said we can turn this, we can do this, we can start planning and being able to do that.

It was very difficult to do... And for two or three days in this warehouse that we built, we rebuilt.

We just had an incredible experience that was so memorable and so fun.

And, you know, they basically brought Cuba to Denver.

X Alfonso, it's fair to say that his greatest creation is his life, the life he lives.

He's living his best life.

And well host the inaugural Cities Summit of the Americas.

In Denver in 2023.

The Biden-Harris administration has selected Denver to host the inaugural Cities Summit of the Americas.

Its bringing hundreds of leader from across the continent right here to Denver, and the biennial will bring a number of artists, dancers, musicians and designers.

Will bring more than 3000 visitors right here to Denver.

Sustainable Development, Climate Resilience, Democracy, Renewal, Technology Innovation.

Colorado really leads the way in that spirit of innovation and collaboration that helps make Colorado special.

So we kind of crafted this idea of “Fabrica de Arte Americas,” the celebration of our entire Western Hemisphere, to be able to bring back what we had done in ‘17, but make it bigger, wider and kind of cast a vaster net So I chaired the host committee that raised the money to to make this happen some of the money to make this happen.

When you think about what we're trying to do with the summit, it's really to build community, to make sure we have the right people in the room who are struggling with the same issues so that they can share, you know, build connections, relationships.

And then lastly, it's really about change.

You know, getting 100 artists from the Americas, from Canada to Argentina all the way through the continent has not been easy, but they've managed to do it.

We're opening tonight and everybody's very excited.

So working with them is really exciting because they have this deep passion for artists, for dance, for creatives, for fashion.

And so for us, it's exciting to to kind of be part of that, to work alongside them and to kind of have a little bit of a witness to the magic behind their kind of secret sauce.

So it's not one artist or one particular dance performance.

I think it's this idea of creating this hub of connection where people feel really celebrated and you feel deeper to what our community is made of.

We understood X and Sandra, which is their number one priority for having a place is authenticity.

It needs to reflect the place.

It needs to reflect something that is not done.

They don't like corporately finished spaces.

They want to create and be able to let the artists and their programing create the space.

You know the arts are a central part of who we are.

They're a reflection on our humanity, the experiences we share.

It's fundamentally uniting the really different lenses on human experience that artisans of all types are able to craft into pieces that inspire us to achieve at an even higher level.

Great cities are defined by the people that choose to make the decision to live in those cities, or make the decision to come visit that city, spend their time, invest themselves in that city.

And by having Fabrica here even temporarily makes us more attractive and more magnetic to you know, all people, but especially creative people.