Heritage Project: Puerto Rico

Reflection/Comparison/Overall Experience-Widelys

Puerto Rico has many forms of dance that incorporate our culture. Dances such as bomba y plena, salsa, chacha, and even bachata are very famous throughout the country. I have been dancing salsa ever since I could walk. My parents met dancing salsa so they taught me how to salsa at a young age. Once I entered high school I became a part of the Latin Fire Dancers. Currently I am captain of the Ballroom Dance Team. What we learned throughout the year connects back to salsa because ballet is the base of everything. Once you learn ballet everything else becomes easier. Ballet teaches you balence, you learn to turn, you build muscle and stamina. These are all skills that are required in almost every form of dance. My overall experience in Dance 1 was great. Although I do wish I could've taken the course sooner and realized I wanted to dance as a career at a younger age I will take everything I have been taught at Union City High School and move foward. I have progressed tremendously throughout the year. I never imagined I would survive ballet. As we got deeper into dance I began to fall in love with everything we did more and more. I accomplished my goal of performing a modern piece at Open Mic 10. I will take my entire dance experience at Union City High School and carry it with me forever.

Music, Instruments, and Costumes

Puerto Rico's culture is seen best during the holidays. Around Christmas time people go from door to door performing parrandas. Parranadas are the equivalent of Christmas caroling except with more instruments. In a parranda maracas, guiras, el cuatro, guitars, panderetas, and el tambor are used as well as during, bomba y plena, and Jibaro music.

Reflection/Comparison, Overall Experience-Melanie

Just like in Puerto Rico here in America we have traditional dances as well.In dance class ive had many surprising moments but the one that i remember the most was during hip hop. During hip hop we were showed some complicated tricks and i was able to pick them up and get them down quick. When i started dance class i was just thinking like what is this? And as the time passed everything started to fall in place where it belonged. From my personal experience i believe that salsa relates more to modern because of the fact there is somehow still choreo and also improv. Every single dance that i learned about in dance is different from each other. Ballet is the basics so everything is easier. Jazz a bit more dancing to it but its similar to ballet. Hip hop was more upbeat and rhythimy. Modern was more advanced it mostly worked on the floor and this was my personal favorite including improv and comp. Improv is more on using steps that we were already taught to come up with your own choreo. Over the course of the year i wasn’t the dancer i am now. I have improved so much, before i thought i knew what i was doing and now I’m sure of what I’m doing and that was a pretty big accomplishment that i took care of.

Typical Foods & Plants/Animal Life

The foods Puerto Rico is known for are mofongo, arroz con gandules, pernil, pasteles, and alcapurias. The majority of these foods are consumed during the holidays.

The plant and animal life of Puerto Rico is great. El Yunque National Rainforest was one of the seven wonders of the world once. Animals such as the coqui, parrots, lizards and iguanas roam the land.

Background Info

Located the Caribbean, Puerto Rico covers 8,870 square kilometers of land and 4,921 square kilometers of water. It the 164th largest nation in the world with a total area of 13,791 square kilometers. The countries near Puerto Rico are Cuba and Dominican Republic.

Heritage Project: Puerto Rico