Saturday, November 23, 2024
1PM
Free and open to the public
RSVP here
Join us for a youth and family-centered workshop on Puerto Rican bomba with New Haven-based group, Proyecto Cimarron. Participants will learn about the history of bomba, the instruments and dance, and practice basic dance steps and rhythms. Please dress comfortably.
ABOUT PROYECTO CIMARRON
Proyecto Cimarron is a Puerto Rican bomba performance group based in New Haven, CT. The members were brought together by their love of Afro-Latino culture, a shared commitment to preserving and sharing bomba rhythms, and utilizing bomba as a gateway for advancing social justice.
ABOUT BOMBA (excerpt from Proyecto Cimarron)
Puerto Rican bomba is a traditional dance and music style which evolved in the island during the island’s history of African slavery while under Spanish rule over 400 years ago. For the enslaved and their ancestors in the sugar plantations, bomba was a source of spiritual expression through which enslaved Africans could share future plans of insurrections, mark events, and momentarily feel the freedom of expression using their instruments: their voices, their drums, maracas, cua and the dancers’ piquetes (improvised dance steps). Bomba remains rooted in resistance and is often used as a cultural means to fight for racial justice and social justice.