Casita Maria’s South Bronx Cultural Festival is an outdoor festival of music and dance that celebrates the diverse cultures and communities of the cultural forge that is the South Bronx.
South Bronx Cultural Festival 2025
The South Bronx Cultural Festival 2025 celebrates Casita Maria’s 91st Anniversary with lots of great Latin artists and family entertainment, including an Eddie Palmieri musical tribute, Nelson González All Star Band, and Casita Maria’s own Bronx Banda featuring Arturo O’Farrill; at Father Gigante Plaza in Longwood, The Bronx; from Friday-Sunday, May 30 – June 1, 2025. FREE. 🇦🇷 🇧🇷 🇨🇺 🇲🇽 🇵🇷
South Bronx Cultural Festival 2024
The South Bronx Cultural Festival 2024 celebrates Casita Maria’s 90th Anniversary with BronX BandA featuring Arturo O’Farrill, the Bobby Sanabria Multiverse Big Band, the Eddie Palmieri Salsa Orchestra, and lots more family entertainment; at Father Gigante Plaza in Longwood, The Bronx; from Friday-Sunday, May 31 – June 2, 2024. FREE. 🇧🇷 🇨🇱 🇨🇺 🇩🇴 🇭🇹 🇭🇳 🇲🇽 🇵🇷
BronxNet’s Rhina Valentin and Javier E. Gomez host this year’s theme “Born in El Barrio & Raised in the South Bronx.”
Musical performers include:
- BronX BandA featuring Arturo O’Farrill, Casita Maria’s 11-piece Latin jazz ensemble. 🇨🇺
- Bobby Sanabria MULTIVERSE Big Band featuring singers Janis Siegel, Antoinette Montague, and Jennifer Jade Ledesna with the Danza Fiesta Puerto Rican folk dancers. 🇵🇷
- Eddie Palmieri Salsa Orchestra co-presented with the National Jazz Museum in Harlem. 🇵🇷
- Young Artists of Casita Maria.
- Mariachi Real de México with Ballet Folklorico Mexicano de Nueva York. 🇲🇽
- Yasser Tejeda playing his super-danceable Afro-Dominican alternative. 🇩🇴
- People of Earth blends Cuban rumba and timba, Puerto Rican bomba and plena, Haitian Kompa, Brazilian MPB pop rock, and many African American traditions from rhythm and blues to hip hop into some great music. 🇺🇸 🇧🇷 🇨🇺 🇭🇹 🇵🇷
- It’s Showtime NYC!, a group of street dancers led by Cal Hunt, will perform a special commission with GrandWizzard Theodore and BronX BandA.
DJs include:
- Grandwizzard Theodore is Theodore Livingston, a living hip hop legend who invented scratching. He appeared in the seminal hip hop movie “Wild Style,” and Baz Lurhmann’s “The Get Down” is his story. It’s an amazing South Bronx story. Watch it on Netflix. 🇺🇸
- Tiff McFierce.
- Sabine Blaizin (Oyasound). 🇭🇹
Dance performers include:
- Ballet Folklorico Mexicano de Nueva York. 🇲🇽
- Ballet Hispánico presents their “Latine Immersive Experience with Tempo Alegre,” a journey through the cultures of Latin America.
- Danza Fiesta Puerto Rican folk dancers perform with Bobby Sanabria and lead bomba puertorriqueña dance lesson. 🇵🇷
- Wabafu Garifuna Dance Theatre is a great Garifuna drum, song, and dance troupe. 🇭🇳
Art and Book activations include:
- Puerto Rican Institute for the Development of the Arts (PRIDA). 🇵🇷
- Casita Maria’s teaching artist Maria Luisa Portuondo Vila. 🇨🇱
- The New York Public Library is hosting a bookmobile.
Festival highlights will be broadcast later on BronxNet Television.
Sponsors include: New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York City Council, Howard Gilman Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and SEBCO.
Casita Maria
Casita Maria is a K-12 grade school for immigrant kids in the South Bronx. They have an enviable college entry rate. Many famous people say that Casita Maria kept them off the streets and enabled them to build successful careers. One of them was National Medal of Arts winner Tina Ramirez, the founder of Ballet Hispánico. Some Casita Maria kids are unaccompanied, some have disabilities, but they are the most amazing bunch of young New Yorkers.
This is Casita Maria’s year-end arts performance. Famous artists perform at the festival because they are from the South Bronx, and many were Casita Maria kids.
Editor Keith: I and New York Latin Culture Magazine are kind of Casita Maria kids too. Several years ago, one of the board members crowned me a son of “Eleguá,” the Cuban Yoruba orisha of the crossroads. At the time, I didn’t know who or what that was, but as I read about him, I realized that I really am one of his sons and he has been around my entire life. I just didn’t have the African Diaspora context to understand. He’s a bit of a clown who brings people together, makes everyone laugh, and gets people to dance. I’m a journalist who brings people together, became funny in Spanish (after being crowned), and am one of the most fun Argentine tango dancers in the Caribbean. He’s also the saint of the truth, so I make mistakes, but do not lie. Good journalists are truth seekers. The diana that opens many salsa songs “E-le-le, le-le-le” is a call to Elegúa to open a channel to the divine because in both African Diaspora and Indigenous tradition, dance is how we pray. My spiritual connection with Eleguá informs everything I do and has expanded my world exponentially. Knowledge comes with responsibility and I take my responsibility very seriously. Thank you Casita Maria!