Pete Reinwald (
Spectrum News 13) writes about Barbara Liz Cepeda, founder of the nonprofit Kissimmee’s Escuela de Bomba y Plena Tata Cepeda, where she teaches bomba a traditional Puerto Rican type of music, drumming and dancing with distinctly African roots. The school carries name of Cepeda’s mom, Tata Cepeda, who named her own school after her grandmother.
Just before she begins each dance, Barbara Liz Cepeda appears confident and carefree. But at that moment, she says, she’s neither. “I’m scared,” she says. “I’m scared because for me it’s a responsibility … I’m carrying the legacy of my family.”
Listen • 4:40
Barbara Liz-Cepeda was used to giving her classes in a packed studio, filled with students eager and excited to learn about Puerto Rico’s music and culture. Now, she puts on her custom-tailored skirt and rolls out her percussion instruments to give her classes virtually from her living room.
Liz-Cepeda, who runs a Puerto Rican cultural arts school called
Escuela de Bomba y Plena Tata Cepeda in Kissimmee, Fl, is the great-granddaughter of Rafael Cepeda, the patriarch of Puerto Rican Bomba and Plena.
Bomba is Puerto Rico’s oldest genre of music dating from the 16th century and was developed by enslaved Africans in the sugar cane plantations. Plena is another traditional genre of music developed in the late 20th century. The two genres are different, but often combined because they are Puerto Rico’s oldest.
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Barbara Liz-Cepeda refuses to let the pandemic stop her from running her Puerto Rican cultural arts school Escuela de Bomba y Plena Tata Cepeda. As the founder and the director of the Central Florida non-profit, she’s making it her mission to expand her audience and reach the Puerto Rican diaspora around the globe through virtual platforms.