Yerba Buena Gardens Festival: “Batey Tambó”

Submitted by the Event Organizer

Oakland percussionist Denise Solís founded one of the first ever all-female ensembles devoted to the Afro-Indigenous Puerto Rican tradition of bomba, Las Bomberas de la Bahia, and she’s been drumming down barriers for women in the art form ever since. Working with Julia Caridad Cepeda (Julia Danse), who hails from a venerated Puerto Rican family that has carried bomba rituals for more than eight generations, Solís founded and co-directs Batey Tambó, a Bay Area-based, women of color-led cultural group grounded in bomba music and dance. The high-energy troupe, which takes its name from the space (bateys) where bomba is practiced, builds on the legacy of the groundbreaking La Bomba es Nuestra conclave in 2007. Solís was one of the directors/facilitators of the event, the first-ever convening of an all-women drumming ensemble that brought together bomberas from the diaspora and Puerto Rico to learn, share and collaborate in a series of epic performances. 

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