By PETER WATROUS

          On Dec. 31, 1958, the pianist Byron Janis performed in Santiago de Cuba for an audience of
          ecstatic upper-class Cubans and nervous soldiers; Fidel Castro was finally coming down from
          the hills to take over. The next day Castro arrived, and Janis left for New York. He was one of the
          last United States musicians to perform in pre-revolutionary Cuba.

          Now, after 40 years of hostility between the two countries and an American economic blockade
          that restricts travel to Cuba, Janis will be performing in Havana next month. And he will not be
          there alone.

          The next few months may be unprecedented in the cultural history of post-revolutionary Cuba,
          as a stream of performers and representatives of arts organizations from the United States arrive
          in the wake of the Pope's visit last year and the Clinton Administration's easing of restrictions
          last month to make cultural exchanges easier. Janis was invited by the Cuban Government and
          given the green light by the United States Treasury Department, which enforces the Helms-Burton
          Act, the 1996 measure that further tightened economic sanctionsagainst the Communist Cuban state.

          This month, a segment of MTV's "Road Rules" will be filmed in Havana, with cast members shown
          playing baseball and listening to music at a nightclub. The Baltimore Orioles are negotiating an
          exhibition game with the Cuban national team next month. George C. Wolfe, the producer of the
          Joseph Papp Public Theater/ New York Shakespeare Festival, has spent a week in Havana, scouting
          a location for "Bring In da Noise, Bring In da Funk," his Tony Award-winning musical history of
          African-Americans, which just closed on Broadway.

          And at the end of March a Los Angeles organization called Music Bridges will send some 70
          American pop, country and jazz musicians, ranging from Burt Bacharach and Jimmy Buffett to the
          Indigo Girls, to spend a week writing songs with Cuban musicians. A concert at the end of their stay
          is to feature the products of the encounter.

          "There's no precedent for anything like Music Bridges at all," said William Martinez, a lawyer and
          promoter in San Francisco who specializes in navigating the tricky waters of the Helms-Burton Act
          for Americans who want to travel to Cuba. He is responsible for bringing in many of the Cuban
          musical groups that have been touring the United States.

          "If you had asked me if this was possible five years ago," Martinez said, "I would have said no."

          Five years ago he was suing the United States Government to let a Cuban pop group, Mezcla, come
          in and tour; the Government refused, but the case solidified sentiment against the Government's
          position, which at the time was to refuse most requests. Martinez lost that case, but now the
          floodgates have opened, and Cuban dance, theater and music groups of all kinds have been
          crisscrossing this country.

          These days, Martinez says, visa delays are likely to be the result of volume, not intransigence. Tours
          by Cuban bands have become routine, and even in Miami, where anti-Castro Cuban exile groups
          would protest any sort of nonhostile communication between the countries, Cuban bands playing at
          Saturday night parties are now commonplace.

          What is new in the cultural exchange is the desire and ability of American artists to perform in Cuba.
          Travel to the island, legal and illegal, has been fashionable for several years. The Marina Hemingway
          in Havana is filled with American pleasure boats. And official delegations from organizations like the
          Smithsonian Institution are offset by Hollywood stars looking to revel in the cigars, rum and night life
          of Havana. While the Havana Jazz Festival has intermittently attracted American musicians, and the
          Havana Film Festival has lured visitors from the United States, there has been little American
          performance activity till now.

          The visit by Pope John Paul II and the easing of some economic restrictions (although the embargo
          was not lifted) have brought new attention to a culture and a country that was already popular among
          intellectuals and artists as well as adventurous tourists willing to enter illegally through a third country.
          All this travel begins to restore a pre-revolutionary relationship between the two countries that
          included everything from high culture to low.

          The intense current curiosity about Cuba focuses on everything from the music and the cigars to the
          Hernández brothers in baseball.

          And for some Americans, what further fuels the desire to visit Cuba is the sentiment that the two
          cultures should not be separated for ideological reasons.

          Wolfe, who is planning to open "Bring In da Noise, Bring In da Funk" in September, said he saw the
          Caribbean and South America as a mirror reflection of the United States. "We're each other's story,"
          he said. "I'm curious what kind of exchange there will be between the audience and performers,
          because there are so many parallels between the two countries."

          He said some Cubans were excited about the production "because it was the first time a Broadway
          show would be in Cuba."

          "After members of the Cuban Government saw the show," he added, "they were excited by the
          cultural reality of the show. It's a work that's about history, rhythm and the perpetual process of
          redefining yourself in a new world, and Cuba is perfect place to take a work like that."

          The trips to Cuba are made possible by a provision in in the Helms-Burton Act that allows for
          intercultural exchange, although the act generally seeks to restrict contact, especially business
          contact, between the two countries. Under the provision, those United States citizens who are
          granted licenses by the Treasury Department for educational or cultural purposes are allowed to visit
          Cuba but may not spend more than $100 a day there.

          Some opponents of the licensing system say that it is administered arbitrarily and that Treasury
          officials holds up travel permits. Global Exchange, a 10-year-old educational travel organization
          based in San Francisco, has challenged Helms-Burton by sending American students and musicians
          to Cuba through a third country. The Treasury Department has sent the group notice to cease the
          Cuba trips and has frozen the company's assets.

          "We feel the policy is erratic at best," said Pam Montanaro, coordinator of the Cuba program at
          Global Exchange. "Academics are required to jump through hoops if the Government doesn't want
          them to spread their findings on Cuba. We're opposed to the embargo, so they've been hard on us.
          But the right to travel is a human right that is recognized by many countries internationally. For the
          Government to promote democracy in Cuba while trampling on our human rights here is hypocritical,
          so we're going to fight it."

          The Treasury Department did not respond to requests for comment.

          Meanwhile private interest in Cuba keeps boiling along. Peter Buck, a member of the rock group
          R.E.M., will be going to Havana with Music Bridges.

          "I've read a lot about Cuba, know Cubans, listen to the music, eat the food and am familiar with the
          culture, but I haven't been able to go," he said. "I'm not going starry eyed, but I'm curious. When the
          wall went down in Berlin, it showed me that politics don't end a situation. Finally it was the kids, who
          wanted rock-and-roll and jeans that changed the culture. What I've learned from traveling around
          the world is that the people don't have anything to do with the government."

          The Cuban Government is seemingly happy about all the activity. It has the most to gain by the
          exchanges, attracting not only attention to its economic plight but also the support of major
          entertainment figures and the dollars they may bring. With the loss of Soviet sponsorship, the United
          States embargo and bad internal economic planning, the country is in financial shambles.

          "We're not going to be gaining anything financially," said Tomas Misas, the director of international
          relations for the Cuban Government's Institute of Music. "We're financially in a tough situation, but I
          think that finally culture all over the world wins in programs like this. We're always ready to enrich
          the culture through common experience. To get Byron Janis here for many people is a dream. We're
          always ready for projects like this."

          Janis, who remembers playing in the Soviet Union during the crisis that followed the shooting down
          of an American U-2 plane, sees his return to Cuba as a logical continuation of his desire to bring
          people together.

          "I performed in Cuba before the revolution all the time," Janis said. "The blockade seems like
          something governmental. It really has nothing to do with the people. And my feeling is that music is
          the perfect way of bringing the countries together. I hope that after I've opened the door to classical
          music, major American classical stars will start making the trip."
 

                     Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company