This workshop, taught in both Spanish and English, provides educators with a fundamental understanding of Afro-Puerto Rican dance and drum culture through the rich musical heritage of Bomba y Plena. Educators will engage with Bomba y Plena’s history and culture and gain insight into how it is used to nourish resistance, healing, and community celebrations. Through guided exploration with instruments and dance, educators will learn the basics of Bomba y Plena, as they learn how gestural cues, active listening, and call and response can increase student engagement. This creative practice is great for promoting teamwork, building leadership skills, and making everyone feel like they belong.

Educators will:

• Engage first-hand in the excitement of learning the history, culture, language and materials of Bomba y Plena.
• Establish the Afro-Puerto Rican community setting called Batey, an indigenous phrase meaning a place and space where the community gathers to play drums, dance for healing, resistance, empowerment and celebration.
• Distinguish the nuances of Bomba y Plena through instrumentation & sound.
• Learn how to introduce the culturally authentic strategies of Bomba y Plena to students.
• Experience full body warm up and breath exercises as a grounding for the core dance rhythms, including basic plena and sica steps.
• Tempo and improvisation will be explored through barrile buleador, primo o subidor (highest pitch drums), clave, maraca, Cuá (two sticks marking the meter/timing), pandero, güiro and mouthing beats.
• Discover opportunities to integrate Bomba y Plena into classroom learning.

YA Connections:

NJSLS-VPA

• Artistic Process; Creating; Conceiving & developing new artistic ideas & work
• Practice: Explore Anchor Standard: 1. Generating and conceptualizing ideas.
• Practice: Investigate Anchor Standard: 2.
• Organizing and developing ideas.
• Practice: Reflect, Refine, Continue

Professional Standards for Educational Leaders

4. Standard Four: Content Knowledge

When you pair this program with Segunda Quimbamba’s assembly, they provide teachers with the in-classroom support implementing creative teaching practices, what they have learned into practice.