A bit of our story.
It is easy to miss the warmth of latin culture in a place that is so far from everything, like Utah. It was the need to connect with other Puerto Ricans and latinxs who are passionate about Puerto Rican folklore, that united what are now the Bomba Marilé group members.
After a bomba workshop offered in Utah on November 2017 by Héctor Lugo and Shefali Shah, instructors of “Bay Area Bomba y Plena Workshop”, we started meeting weekly so that we could study bomba musicality and dance. With a lot of patience and optimism, we continue to study so that we can represent Afro-Puerto Rican culture with the respect it deserves.
It is said that “marilé” is a combination of the words ‘mar’, which means ‘sea’ in Spanish, and the word ‘ile’, which means ‘home’ in Yoruba. The name makes us think of the place we love so much, Borinquen: the birthplace of bomba, and the cause of our union.