Garifuna Collective and Wabafu Garifuna Dance Theater join forces for a free SummerStage show (with dance lessons) at Crotona Park in The Bronx on Friday, August 2, 2019 from 6-9pm. FREE
Afro-Caribbean Music and Dance
Where there is music, there is dance and where there is dance, there is music. Where people are truly alive, there are both.
Just two days ago, I spent a day with the Ayala family in Loíza, Puerto Rico listening to and watching family and friends drum, sing and dance the Puerto Rican Bomba.
Oh my God, Dios mío. If you have never been to a real African drum party, you haven’t lived. Your heritage doesn’t matter. We are all originally Africans (unless you are not human). There is something in the drum that will shake awake every cell in your body.
Garifuna Afro-Carib is not the same as Afro-Taíno, but it is close, and the African root is also very similar. Taíno were/are the Indigenous people of the Greater Antilles. Carib were/are the Indigenous people of the Lesser Antilles. Carib are fierce.
We’ve been told for generations that we were wiped out, but it’s not true. We intermarried and some escaped. Garifuna are the last living line of Indigenous Carib. It’s complicated, but we escaped the British colonizers to Honduras.
Crotona is the home of New York City’s Garifuna community, so this performance is on home ground.
Of everything that is going on this weekend in New York City, this is the place to be. Follow the drum.