Some performances entertain. Others remember. Violines Para Ochún, the landmark Sacred Traditions event of CCCADI’s 50th Anniversary Year, does both. It arrives at Hostos Center for the Arts & Culture in the Bronx on Sunday, October 25, 2026, at 3:00 p.m.
The Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute presents the production with Hostos Center for the Arts & Culture and the Leonard Davis Center for the Performing Arts. It traces a musical and spiritual journey from Africa to Cuba to New York City. That route will feel familiar to many in the audience, because plenty of them, or their grandparents, traveled it.
A Homecoming for Louis Bauzó
The musical director is master percussionist Louis Bauzó, and his return is the headline inside the headline. For decades, Bauzó played CCCADI’s stages with his ensembles Patakin and Carambú. Before that, he spent years drumming alongside the legendary Tito Puente.
He studied under master drummer Carlos Aldama. Through him, Bauzó carries an Afro-Cuban sacred drumming lineage that reaches back to the drum-building tradition of Matanzas, Cuba. Bauzó’s own recorded narration guides the audience between chapters.
The Sound of Ochún
The production unfolds in four chapters over 90 to 120 minutes. Its anchor is the harp violin, an instrument long associated with Ochún, the orisha of rivers, sweetness and love. The story is told through the eyes of an Omo Ochún, a daughter of Ochún. Solos and storytelling share the stage with the music, in keeping with a tradition passed down by word of mouth.
Passing the Torch
The intergenerational cast includes musicians, dancers and practitioners, many of whom grew up in CCCADI’s Sacred Traditions programming. Their elders carried these traditions out of basements and onto world stages. Now a new generation takes the baton.
CCCADI Executive Director Melody Capote calls the evening “a homecoming, both for Louis Bauzo and for these Sacred Traditions themselves.” It is also a full-circle moment. The Ochún celebration echoes the Oshun Festival series CCCADI presented throughout the 1980s and ’90s.
Come Ready to Participate
At Violines Para Ochún, you are not just in the audience. Guests are invited to bring an offering for Ochún and place it on the evening’s Community Altar.
Arrive early to visit the pop-up table from CCCADI’s Community Archiving Lab for Culture and Justice. It features archival materials from five decades of Sacred Traditions programming, including past Oshun celebrations and earlier work with Bauzó and Patakin.
Event Details
Violines Para Ochún (Iru Duru Kan Omo Oshun)
When: Sunday, October 25, 2026, at 3:00 p.m.
Where: Hostos Center for the Arts & Culture, 450 Grand Concourse, Bronx, NY 10451
Tickets: cccadi.org/events/violinesparaochun
Fifty years in, CCCADI is still keeping the drum, and the memory, alive. Bring something sweet for Ochún, and bring someone who should hear this.