Photo Credit : David Gonzalez / New York Times
BombaYo will bring an immersive experience to the Latinx Project that will educate participants on the historical and cultural origins of Bomba. In this performance-based workshop, participants will learn the meaning behind the songs, rhythms, and dance of Bomba as connected to healing, resistance, and Puerto Rican ancestry.
BombaYo ignites the ancestral rhythms of Bomba, an African-derived music and dance tradition developed in Puerto Rico. The synergy of call-and-response singing, drumming and dance provides the foundation for a dynamic interplay between the solo drummer and dancer.
In the spirit of Sankofa -looking to your past for a better future- BombaYo members draw from the bomba tradition to enrich their lives and embrace their cultural legacy. Through workshops, cultural presentations, performances, and partnerships, BombaYo engages communities throughout NYC area to raise awareness of Afro-Puerto Rican culture and to connect Bomba to the vast traditions of the African Diaspora.
Participants
Jose Ortiz aka Dr. Drum
Born on December 3rd, 1958, at New York City’s St. Vincent Hospital to Puerto Rican parents both from Caguas, Puerto Rico, Dr. Drum is known as one of the Top National Afro Rican Bomba Artists. Bronx native Jose Ortiz, aka Dr. Drum, is a nationally highly acclaimed professional on-stage performer, educator in Pan-African, Caribbean and Latin culture and is a self-taught percussionist of AfroCaribbean rhythms. For these past twenty years, he has been an adamant advocate for the cultural arts as well as an adamant activist, organizer and educator of Afro Puerto Rican Bomba, a traditional African derived music and art form, which was brought to the Americas from the African slaves.
Dr. Drum is presently the co-founder and Musical Director of BombaYo Afro-Puerto Rican Arts’ Project. His work helps members of all ages, cultures, backgrounds, race and ethnicities develop a strong sense of identity and responsibility through actively exploring their cultural roots. Dr. Drum’s engaging style encourages children and adults to explore their own musicality. He sees this art form as a vehicle for self-discipline, cultural affirmation, and healing. In doing this work Dr. Drum most importantly, seeks to bring awareness and appreciation of the contributions of the African Diaspora in the Americas to the entire world. Dr. Drum has been affiliated through the Brooklyn Arts Council, the Bronx Council On the Arts, the City Lore, the Union Square Award Professional Development Program. Furthermore, he has co-chaired a committee and presented for the Bomba Research Conference. Throughout the years, Dr. Drum has been acknowledged numerously and has received various awards such as: TheProclamation Recognition Award from the Bronx Borough President, the Don Quijote Recognition Award from the Brooklyn college and numerous citation awards from the New York State Assembly Men and Council throughout the years for his immense cultural contributions.
Dr. Andrew B. Torres
Dr. Andrew B. Torres (he, him, his, el) is an Afro Boricua spoken word artist from the Bronx. His work disrupts traditional performance to challenge social norms of conformity and respectability politics. Focusing on themes at the intersections of identity, youth, hood culture, and mental health he aims to depict the desirability of racially minoritized communities. Bringing spoken word to his community through education, Dr. Torres taught spoken word as an English and Social Justice teacher while also facilitating workshops for middle/high school students, teachers, administrators, and professors across the United States. He has been performing for the last 17 years and has graced the stage of the Nuyorican, the Point, El Museo del Barrio, and the Bowery Poetry Club. His work seeks to shift normalized frameworks of poetics toward a poetics of fugitivity and survivance. His poems are published in the BX Writers Anthology Volume 1 and the Springfield POV. Dr. Torres is currently employed as a Clinical Assistant Professor of English Education at New York University coaching pre-service teachers.