Silvina Fabars Gilall was born on 22 February 1944 in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba. Her ancestry includes grandparents from Guinea and Ghana, who helped raise her. As a child, she was taught to read and write by an aunt and was only able to attend elementary school for 2 or three years, as her labor was needed. She worked in the cane fields, planted sweet potatoes, picked coffee and hauled wood and water. She lived in a community of Haitians and learned their folk dances and patois. At the age of fourteen, she joined Fidel Castro's rebel army in the and participated in the Cuban Revolution. In 1959, she began working at the airport in San Antonio de los Banos as a member of the legendary Mariana Grajales Women's Squad. Around the same time, she co-founded the first Cuban folk dancing company, known as the "Ballet Folklórico de Oriente" (Eastern Folk Dancing Company), where she performed as a singer and dancer until 1965.