In this episode, Elisabeth speaks with Imani Jalil, Program Director and Dance Director at Bembé Drum + Dance. Since 2015, Bembé has been giving school children and adults in the Milwaukee area opportunities for exploring Afro-Latino culture through music and dance traditions offered through artist residencies, workshops, school programming and events. Through their programming, people of all ages and backgrounds are invited to explore music – specifically percussion-- and dance, and to experience joy, be in community, and learn about the rich cultures that make up the Afro-Latino cultures, and the African Diaspora.  

Jalil reflects in the conversation about how the work of Bembé is a unique within the landscape of Milwaukee’s arts and culture, because of the blend of cultures that the organization teaches about: many languages, nations, religions and ethnic groups are represented within the Afro-Latino cultural lens. 

In addition to presenting workshops and events, Bembé brings resident artists into the Milwaukee community from outside the region to teach their craft, and to be immersed in the Milwaukee community in a kind of cultural teaching exchange which they call “Learning from the Masters”. In the conversation, Jalil shares about her own trajectory as a dancer and a dance student, and wonders about how the presence of an organization that represented her own mixed identity like Bembé might have been a very empowering form of representation to experience as a younger person on her own journey. 

Follow Bembé on Facebook and Instagram— and, purchase tickets for the Carnavale event on March 19! 

Cantos de las Américas 

MPS 

Escuela Verde 

Eden’s Crush 

Alberto “Beto” Torrens