The Festival de Bomba y Plena de San Antón (English: ''San Anton's Bomba and Plena Festival''), is an annual celebration held in

Ponce, Puerto Rico Ponce ( , , ) is a city and a Municipalities of Puerto Rico, municipality on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. The most populated city outside the San Juan, Puerto Rico, San Juan metropolitan area, Ponce was founded on August 12, 1692Some publ ...

, as an extravaganza celebration of Bomba and

Plena Plena is a genre of music and dance native to Puerto Rico. Origins The plena genre originated in Barrio San Antón, Ponce, Puerto Rico, around 1900. It was influenced by the bomba style of music. Originally, sung texts were not associated wit ...

music genre A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. Genre is to be distinguished from musical form and musical style, although in practice these terms are sometim ...

s and the traditions of Ponce's

barrio ''Barrio'' () is a Spanish language, Spanish word that means "Quarter (urban subdivision), quarter" or "neighborhood". In the modern Spanish language, it is generally defined as each area of a city delimited by functional (e.g. residential, comm ...

San Antón San Antón is one of the 31 barrios of Puerto Rico, barrios of the municipality of Ponce, Puerto Rico. Along with Canas Urbano, Machuelo Abajo, Magueyes Urbano, and Portugués Urbano, San Antón is one of the municipality's five originally rura ...

. The celebration lasts 10 days and it ends on a Sunday. It is generally held in July but sometimes in November.

History

The festival started in 1978. It started when Barrio San Antón residents united to oppose plans by municipal authorities to re-zonify the San Antón area that would have resulted in the replacement of their existing mix of wooden and concrete neighborhood homes and the construction, instead, of multi-story residential buildings. The festival had a 10-year hiatus from 1998 to 2008. It is held at placita Pedro Arce of Barrio San Antón,

. It takes place on over 10 days, sometimes on a weekend (3 days). The festival generated tremendous interest, and other Puerto Rico municipalities have started their own bomba and plena festivals, including

Dorado Dorado (, ) is a constellation in the Southern Sky. It was named in the late 16th century and is now one of the 88 modern constellations. Its name refers to the mahi-mahi (''Coryphaena hippurus''), which is known as ''dorado'' ("golden") in Sp ...

, Aguas Buenas, Loiza, and Mayagüez. In 2010, the Puerto Rico legislative assembly declared Barrio San Antón a historic site and the "cradle of Plena music".

Venues

The festival takes place at Placita Pedro Arce in Barrio San Anton. At times the venue for the activity has been changed to other locations in the municipality, such as

Paseo Tablado La Guancha Paseo Tablado La Guancha (English language, English: ''La Guancha Boardwalk'') is a boardwalk (entertainment district), boardwalk in the La Guancha sector of the Playa (Ponce), Playa barrio in the city of Ponce, Puerto Rico, facing the Caribbea ...

.''Celebrarán festival de bomba y plena en la Guancha.''
Periodico El Sol de Puerto Rico. 14 May 2019. Accessed 11 December 2019.

References

External links

{{Ponce, Puerto Rico, state=collapsed July November Carnivals in Puerto Rico Annual events in Puerto Rico Recurring events established in 1978 Festivals in Ponce, Puerto Rico 1978 establishments in Puerto Rico

History

Venues

See also

References

External links