Caribeando Music and Dance Workshops (CMDW) is a series of free interactive workshops designed to engage the community in creative movement and musical expression while enriching its understanding of the diversity of Caribbean culture. CMDW offers a new, multidisciplinary, accessible way to celebrate Caribbean cultural heritage in the Riverdale community.
Juan Usera is a fourth-generation Bomba practitioner and culture-bearer from Santurce, Puerto Rico; a community educator, researcher, college professor, musician, and performer. Juan has over 20 years of experience developing highly engaging cultural activities and arts programs for the BIPOC, underserved, and disadvantaged communities throughout the New York tri-state area. He specializes in Puerto Rican, Caribbean, and Latin American music and culture. He taught at John Jay College for Criminal Justice where he created the course Introduction to Afro-Caribbean Music and Dance. He studies and performs African diasporic dance, music, history, and culture in order to advance racial and social justice and to promote community understanding and appreciation of Black and Caribbean culture, aesthetics, and representations of identity in the art, music, and dance of the African diaspora.
