![]() She’s wearing a turban - a traditional part of the female bomba costume - in the colours of Loíza, of course. Then, with just a gentle nod, she signals to the drummer and starts swaying her lime-green skirt from side to side. “We borrow vocabulary from Africa and entwine it with English and Spanish.” ![]() “The legacy of the Afro-Puerto Ricans is very important it brings a deep influence to the food, to the dance and to the way we speak here, which is very different to other places in Puerto Rico,” explains Sheila. Next to him is a large barril de bomba, painted in Loíza colours of red, gold and green - a trio featured not only on the community’s flag, but on bus stops and lamp posts, too.Īfter I bid adiós to Juan, I head to Cueva María de la Cruz, a cave recently converted into a tourist centre, to meet Sheila Osorio, a bomba dance teacher whose workshops attract Puerto Ricans from across the island. His workshop is a mishmash of nuts and bolts, tins of paint and glue, and skeletons of rum barrels and bongo drums. There are two types of bomba drum, Juan tells me: the low-pitched buleador, which leads a consistent beat, and the high-pitched subidor, or primo, which echoes the movements of the dancer. His straw trilby is embellished with a pin of the island’s omnipresent flag, and he’s wearing the brightest cobalt-blue tropical shirt and black, thick-rimmed glasses. Like most Puerto Ricans, Juan is a fiercely proud Boricua, a word that derives from the island’s indigenous Taíno Indian name, Borikén. These sung sentiments, sometimes called periódico cantado, or ‘sung newspaper’, range thematically from mourning a loss to political uprisings, but at their heart are always expressions of community. In day-to-day life and on colourful posters around Loíza, you’ll see bomba referred to as bomba y plena - plena being the cathartic, lyrical structure of the dance that developed a few centuries later in Ponce on the southern coast. Over time, African and Spanish cultures entwined, birthing a syncopated dance, comprising a maraca-shaking singer, dancers in colourful turbans and long skirts and, most importantly - in the eyes of Juan, at least - drummers, the backbone of any bomba performance. The other three passed away.”īomba music first emerged in Loíza in the 17th century, when Central and West African slaves arrived on the Spanish-ruled island aboard a British ship. I watch him chisel away in his roadside workshop in Loíza, a coastal city in the island’s north east. “Only a few people in Puerto Rico know how to build one of these,” he says. “When the Africans came here as slaves, this kind of music became a release for them, to show what they have inside, their identity,” says Juan Fuentes, a 60-something wood artisan who’s been making bomba drums for over 40 years. The Pelham Art Center Folk Arts Series was started in 2008 as a part of the Art Center’s mission to strengthen community by providing public access to see, study, and experience the arts. Throughout the year, Pelham Art Center offers hosts free weekend Folk Arts events that celebrate cultures from around the globe, allowing area residents to learn about and appreciate the diversity of traditions both within the community and throughout the world.Puerto Rico has always marched to the beat of its own drum - and if you ask any Puerto Rican, they’ll tell you that the drum in question is the barril de bomba, a rum barrel topped with goat skin that’s beaten during the uniquely Afro-Boricua dance, the bomba. This event is presented in conjunction with the Pelham Art Center exhibition IN/FLUX (Sep. Performance is followed by hands-on art workshop highlighting Afro-Puerto Rican culture. With call-and-response singing, drumming and dance, BombaYo will kindle the joy of this Afro-Puerto Rican art form and ignite the ancestral rhythms of Bomba. Bomba is an African-derived music and dance tradition developed in Puerto Rico. Drum, to lead the community in a Bomba music celebration. Pelham Art Center welcomes internationally-acclaimed performer/educator and Bronx native Jose Ortiz, a.k.a. Afro-Puerto Rican Bomba! Septem2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
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