21st Annual Festival
of Dance & Music
March 30 - April 9, 2027
Raíces en movimiento - Roots in Motion
CubaCaribe will bring together five Bay Area companies working in Caribbean, Latinx, and African Diaspora dance and music traditions for a series of performances and community events in San Francisco. The Festival will have 3 performances at ODC Theater, followed by a special event on April 9 at CANA.
For Artistic Director Ramón Ramos Alayo, Roots in Motion represents the cultural roots of diverse countries and ethnic backgrounds, how those roots manifest today through different forms of transculturation, and how they continue to evolve. CubaCaribe seeks to celebrate cultural roots that live, breathe, and move through our bodies. The theme connects us to our ancestors and our communities while inviting us to acknowledge where we come from, understand who we are, and imagine where we are headed. Roots do not stand still, they remain in constant motion within us.
The Festival will explore how artists remain rooted in inherited cultural practices while continuing to shape, reinterpret, and move those traditions forward through their own contemporary artistic voices. Possible participating artists and companies include Duniya Dance and Drum Company, Rueda Con Ritmo, Embodiment Project, Loco Bloco, Cuicacalli, Herencia Guantanamera, and Kiazi Malonga. The final program will feature companies whose work speaks directly to the theme.
Artistically, CubaCaribe seeks to create a program in which distinct cultural traditions can be experienced alongside one another, allowing audiences and artists to recognize connections, differences, and evolving practices across the Diaspora. Live music, culturally rooted movement vocabularies, contemporary choreography, and opportunities for community gathering will remain central to the Festival experience.
CubaCaribe is undertaking this Festival at a moment when sustaining spaces for cultural expression, connection, and visibility feels especially important. Artists within our community continue to navigate economic pressures, displacement, changing funding conditions, and the challenges faced by immigrant communities. Roots in Motion will affirm these artistic traditions as living practices that continue to evolve through the people who carry them, while celebrating the relationships, creativity, and cultural knowledge that keep them moving forward.
