“Afro-Caribbean History through the Arts”:
Honoring Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico (2026 edition)
Drs. Gloria Caballero & Ivor Miller, organizers.
Cuba: Oyo Oro Ensemble: Danys Pérez, director with Lázaro Galarraga (voice)
Haiti: Azaka Group: Azouke / Ayizan / Yatande
Puerto Rico: Bomba de Aquí
June 19-21, 2026

Workshops: Lyman Park, Holyoke, MA. (June 19-20, 4-5PM)
Performances Holyoke Media Center, Holyoke, MA. (June 19-21, 6-8PM)
Service: Congregational Church, Old Lyme, CT. (June 22, 10AM)

We gather in Holyoke, MA., to honor the cultural systems of the circum-Caribbean as an innovating force in Our Americas. This third annual Juneteenth event highlights the spirituality of Caribbean peoples, while recognizing Holyoke as an extension of the Caribbean through its contemporary Puerto Rican, Dominican, Haitian, Cuban and other island populations. Our program title, ‘Afro-Caribbean history through the arts’, welcomes all to meet some of the best folk artists of this genre, who will guide and teach us about the collective genius of Caribbean peoples, through inherited methods of evoking and memorializing their history within a sacred context.

Our artists are initiates into Afro-Caribbean systems — traditions that have developed over the centuries to teach mutual respect and co-existence — whose performance art sustains collective support
for the expression of visions and sentiments. Our Juneteenth celebration embraces the African heritage of the Caribbean as integral to the history of New England. As evoked by Herman Melville in Moby Dick, as exemplified by the DeWolf family of Rhode Island, as well as the Amistad ship in Mystic, Connecticut, the historic wealth of our coastal communities was developed through Atlantic shipping routes and Caribbean plantations. Today, this history is being recovered through research, for example by members of the Congregational Church of Old Lyme, who have worked to identify and memorialize the enslaved Africans and descendants in their community, as reflected in their African burial ground. Understanding the value of ancestors in our lives (even if to appreciate the traditions and ideas they left for us), the artists will lead us through songs and dance to honor the deceased who impact our lives positively, to evoke their legacies, whether they came from the Kongo, China, Native America, Europe, and to recall how they fought colonial bondage to give us sovereignty, as we continue to struggle for justice in the present. Responding to a sequence of images from paintings created by culture bearers in the Haitian and Cuban ritual systems, the artists will evoke a variety of artistic practices of their regions, to demonstrate their affirmation of life and of collective power in community action.Drs. Gloria Caballero & Ivor Miller, organizers.

Cuba: Oyo Oro Ensemble: Danys Pérez, director with Lázaro Galarraga (voice)
Haiti: Azaka Group: Azouke / Ayizan / Yatande
Puerto Rico: Bomba de Aquí

June 19-21, 2026
Workshops: Lyman Park, Holyoke, MA. (June 19-20, 4-5PM)
Performances Holyoke Media Center, Holyoke, MA. (June 19-21, 6-8PM)
Service: Congregational Church, Old Lyme, CT. (June 22, 10AM)