“I love to see the interaction between the primo drummer and the dancer,” Kica Matos told the News. Kica Matos also described her love for the group in its current form. The group, Matos said, is very collaborative and serves as a source of her Puerto Rican pride. She described the group’s atmosphere as welcoming, especially as she considered herself one of its newer members.
“I found myself tapping my foot, moving my head,” Matos told the News. When she was asked to join, she said - “why not?” Today, the group practices every Tuesday and has been invited to perform at events across the city.Ĭuqui Matos, who learned of the group through her sister Kica’s involvement, felt as though the group fostered an inclusive attitude which not only included Puerto Ricans in New Haven but also the city’s larger Latine community. It is said that many a slave rebellion was planned to the rhythms of the bomba, and there are a lot of yuba songs that center resistance.” “It is often associated with resistance and rebellion. “The yuba is my favorite rhythm,” Matos told the News. It has since been used in political and civil activism such as the Black Lives Matter protests and in the recent movement to remove former governor of Puerto Rico Ricardo Rossello following political controversy.įor Matos, bomba is an opportunity for her to celebrate her Afro-Boricua roots. Since its creation, bomba has served as a form of spiritual expression for enslaved Africans under Spanish rule and has since remained a symbol of resistance and justice. Then, Proyecto Cimarrón was officially born. So part of our space was about us being liberated.”
“When we say it in Puerto Rico, we’re speaking specifically to people who resisted and fled all for the purpose of being liberated and taking up with the oppression. “That was the word, the name that they gave to enslaved people who ran away from plantations and ran into the mountains,” Castillo said. “Cimarrón,” according to Castillo, refers to the feeling of liberation that the space sought to provide. When Castillo and several others left the group last fall, they found a new space at the Citywide Youth Coalition, which Castillo noted “is generally created for this kind of fellowship.” Castillo serves as executive director of the organization, which supports local youth through education, leadership development and anti-racist community organizing. “We wanted to kind of be rooted in the idea of creating space for just joy and liberation and practice … we’re not so much worried about the sound and how perfect we need to sound, but more or less about the camaraderie and the fellowship.” “We weren’t necessarily looking to just be a performance troupe,” Castillo said.
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She had immersed herself within the troupe, learning how to drum and dance, before realizing a vision for a new group. In 2019, Castillo came across Movimiento Cultural, a performance troupe in New Haven dedicated to the study of bomba, where she met Kica Matos and several other group members. “The idea is to create space … for anyone who wants to be a part of the culture and learn,” Addys Castillo, who began Proyecto Cimarrón in 2021, told the News.Ĭastillo further described the history of the group. Today, the art form has made its way to New Haven, where members of Proyecto Cimarrón practice their musical and dance skills for events across the city. Historically, bomba is the oldest traditional form of music in Puerto Rico and emerged from the cultural traditions which enslaved Africans brought to the island, serving as a source of cultural and political expression. The group, which was officially launched last year, seeks to create a space to nurture Puerto Rican culture through bomba. Proyecto Cimarrón is sharing its love for Puerto Rican bomba with New Haven.
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