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LeAna López, offers bomba and plena dance classes in East Harlem as a part of the workshops promoted by the musical group and nonprofit organization Los Pleneros de la 21.
LeAna López, offers bomba and plena dance classes in East Harlem as a part of the workshops promoted by the musical group and nonprofit organization Los Pleneros de la 21. (Chris Gregory)

New York - On a recent afternoon, a drum beat echoed from a room in the Julia de Burgos Performance & Arts Center in East Harlem, accompanied by a voice singing: “Soy como el coquí de la tierra mía, que canta de noche y duerme de día” (“I am like the coqui from my homeland, singing by night and sleeping by day”.) About 10 students were dancing bomba and plena, swaying bodies and swinging skirts, following instructor LeAna López, who donned a shirt with the words “salsa,” “plena,” “bomba”, and “rumba.”

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