Re/membering Bamboula | Embodying Home

rapélé bamboula

mô koté, mô kòr

location

house

home

room

place

space

sacred and social

race

the location of home

its location in the body

inside my body

home in my body

home is my body

body is home

home is body

memory

cultural memory

lives in my body

the place is outside and inside

the memory is here and there

the dance is here

embodied

in my body

regardless of place

location

arrived

emerged

indigenous

continuous

Where is Bamboula?
What is Bamboula?
Who dance(d/s) Bamboula?

genealogies and mappings reveal these answers

To Bomba

To Bamboula

to Bamboula

TO ^DANSE _CODAN

To ^Juré

to lala

To Zydeco

To Dance

To Houston

To _Louisiana

to St. Croix

To Puerto Rico

through Yemaya

To ^Africa(s)

“Bomba to Bamboula” relates to the process and texture of Afro-Louisiana and Afro-Puerto Rican dance. I chose ten words that I’ve been in conversation with throughout my practice. These words are both verb and noun. I chose to include the verbs and convert the nouns into actions. I drew a map of the places I’m in conversation with for my research and practice and mapped these words on their respective regions. I recorded myself throughout this process. Lately I’ve been interested in “dancing” in ways that I haven’t typically danced, and with this, I decided to allow my hands to do the dancing by mapping and writing. This has allowed me to interpret the texts I’m reading on Afro-Louisiana and Afro-Puerto Rican dance. In order to learn the Bamboula dance for example, I’ve accessed the primary sources that were written about the dance, and literally danced out the descriptions. This openness in the interpretation of dance has allowed me to not be as stifled in understanding what my ancestors were doing. It has also allowed me to imagine new ways in which the Africans in Louisiana and Puerto Rico maintained their dances and also learned new ones.

A Memory of Continuity

Inspired by Katherine Dunham’s Theory of Memory of Difference, this research seeks to apply a memory of continuity in re/membering Louisiana Bamboula. It seems that where difference presents itself, so does continuity, as it relates to African/Black dance. Louisiana Bamboula is an Afro-Louisiana dance, musical form, and gathering which was popular during the colonial period. The rhythm and musical form are still known but some argue that the dance isn’t. Through utilizing memory of continuity, this research explores how the people of colonial Louisiana indeed remembered the rhythms and dances of Africa, and how due to cultural continuity, this dance still exists somewhere, in places, in bodies, in memories.

Where is Bamboula situated within this?

What did the dance look like?

How did it feel?

What did it mean?

How did Africans arriving from different places share their dances and learn others?

What emerged?

What continues to emerge?

How can genealogies of Bamboula’s ancestors and descendents, and relatives in other places, answer these questions?

I
want
to dance
the dances
of my dancestors.

Am I doing it already?
Isn’t it funny that Bamboula means memory?

Continue the journey...

An Afro-Louisiana dance and music tradition, like Louisiana Bamboula, which was also performed at Congo Square in New Orleans.

Step 1: Listen to “Danse Codan” by Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes Step 2: Find the words below that describe Danse Codan.

Continue the journey...

Step 1: Listen to “Danse Codan” by Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes

Step 2: Find the words below that describe Danse Codan.