This project is a documentary film intended to document and celebrate the bomba community of Chicago.  Bomba is a form of Afro-Puerto Rican music and dance with a long and varied history, which has gone through periods of growth and broad exposure, and relative obscurity.  It has lived in the homes and public spaces of the sugarcane plantation era in Puerto Rico, kept alive by practitioners and elders, then relegated to the stage as a folkloric form, and now reinvigorated through active cultural restoration, both on the island and in diaspora.  Right now in Chicago there is a lively resurgence of bomba happening.  Mainly based in Humboldt Park, it is VIBRANT and full of passionate, active and well informed practitioners, teachers, learners, innovators and supporters who are culture-keeping left and right with love.  There are deeply felt reasons for the perpetuation of this music, and I think the sheer beauty of the music and the people giving it life here should be celebrated and documented.

The film is a collective statement, to pull our voices together in a way that will be of value to cultural insiders as well as outsiders.  It is intended to document the depth and diversity of the community, through the music itself.  It is being organized as a collection of songs and stories through which the larger issues will be recognized.  Each group featured in the film is offering one song from their repertoire that they feel represents their approach to this music and its historical and contemporary relevance.  The groups collaborating so far are AfriCaribe (www.africaribe.net),Nuestro Tambo, Bomba Con Buya, Las Bompleneras, Jorge Emmanuelli Nater of Hermanos Emmanuelli Nater, and Melanie Emmanuelli, with support from many other community members.

If we raise two thirds of our goal, 3Arts will kick in the rest.  Your support at any level will help tremendously to finish the film.  THANK YOU!

ABOUT THE PRODUCER

Jamie Topper is a musician and teaching artist who has been generously invited into the Bomba y Plena community of Chicago.  She currently performs with AfriCaribe and teaches in schools and community centers through the Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center's early childhood program, CAPE (Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education) and CCAP (Center for Community Arts Partnerships of Columbia College).  She has worked on many community ethnographic projects which aim to support, sustain and celebrate cultural forms of music and dance.  www.jamietopper.com