Author: ogonzalez

The Living Legacy video series showcases Salt Lake City’s diverse community through storytelling on how these various communities keep their traditions and legacies alive today. This week features Bomba Marilé.

The Living Legacy video series showcases Salt Lake City’s diverse community through storytelling on how these various communities keep their traditions and legacies alive today. This week features Bomba Marilé.

Bomba Marilé was established in November of 2017 with the purpose of sharing Afro Puerto Rican traditions of Bomba music and dance with the greater Utah community. Since their initiation, they have organized Bomba workshops with visiting instructors, social events including dominos and picnics, and educational activities such as showing documentaries discussing issues related to Puerto Rico.

Bomba Marilé has had the opportunity to perform at various cultural events throughout Utah including Living Traditions Festival, West Side Dance Cinco de Mayo Festival, Mondays at the Park, and the Utah County Fair. They are grateful for the opportunity to highlight their musical traditions from Puerto Rico and to share them with those who support the cultural arts.

Photo & video by TWIG Media Lab 

The video even included a clip of jamming with Taller Bula, Bomba Liberté, Taller Kurubina  and all the amazing bomberx in Cali, highlighting Jade Power Sotomayor while dancing. Shout out to the peeps in Southern Cali for creating such welcoming and beautiful community.

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.