Grade 8 Students Learn Puerto Rican Bomba
Last week, as part of their unit about the history and heritage of the transatlantic slave trade, Grade 8 Humanities students participated in a workshop to learn more about Bomba, a traditional dance from Puerto Rico. Middle School English Humanities teacher Lauren Wright explained that "with this unit, we are trying to center the Black experience to tell a more just and whole story of this history. In doing that, we want to center primary resources, which include acts of resistance, acts of resilience, and the culture that grows out of those. We then connect those resources to our reading of Stamped and the world today."
Puerto Rican Bomba is a direct result of the transatlantic slave trade. This musical tradition developed as a form of communication, resistance, and resilience among enslaved people working on the plantations in Puerto Rico, because it was a form of communication between enslaved people that their enslavers did not understand. The music blends African beats and rhythms with Spanish colonial influences and the Taino culture native to Puerto Rico. The music is created with several percussion instruments to accompany the dancers; the dancers lead the drummers, rather than the other way around. The singers lead a type of call-and-response during a performance, which was one of the ways they could pass along news to enslaved people in other communities. You can see some videos about Bomba HERE and HERE.
A workshop with Semilla Cultural. brought this unit to life for the students. Founder and Director Isha M. Renta López came with other members of the group and gathered with Grade 8 in the Tregaron Gym. They started by playing, dancing, and singing a few songs before teaching the students about the history of Bomba. Then, they taught the students (and their teachers!) how to dance. The students learned how to move their feet, then their arms, and then added the body parts together. By the end of the workshop, when Isha and her team started playing the music again, many students joined in, delighted with their newfound skills!
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Lauren added, "Isha and Semilla Cultural were really open to working with us. They were excited about doing a demonstration, but also about teaching the dance and getting the students to interact with it in order to understand that pursuing one's cultural heritage can also be an act of resistance."
We are so grateful to Isha and Semilla Cultural for taking the time to share their wonderful traditions with our community!
