Bomba y Plena

Bomba y Plena by artist Betsy Z. Casañas was located in the Fairhill neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Bomba y Plena is based on two uniquely Puerto Rican folkloric dances. “When you say ‘bomba y plena,’ you are talking about everything that dance has: music and singing and the form of the instruments,” says Casañas. “Bomba is totally a dance of the drums.” Bomba, which can have one of several rhythms, is played on percussion instruments brought from West Africa by enslaved individuals. La bomba is an event, always featuring dance as well as vocal and percussive music.

Plena is a distinctive Puerto Rican dance associated with coastal areas, although it has become an informal urban entertainment. “It’s a mesh of the musical instruments and of African, Spanish dances and the dances of the Taino Indians (the indigenous people who were almost wiped out by the Spanish),” Casañas says. La plena is a narrative song that describes, sometimes ironically, the lives of the people.

Location Note: Mural no longer on view at this location (painted out between 2009 and 2012).