The Bomba and Plena Dance Troupe at La Casita.

La Casita Cultural Center will once again host its traditional Bomba & Plena Festival, where residents of ���ϲ����� and all of Central New York join SU’s Hispanic communities for the grand finale event of this year’s commemoration of Hispanic Heritage Month. This program will take place on Thursday, Oct. 10, from 6-8 p.m.

In the Puerto Rican tradition, Bomba & Plena combine rhythm and dance in an invigorating pageant of color, percussion and movement. La Casita’s own resident ensemble, the Bomba & Plena Dance Troupe, will perform at the festival along with Raíces, ���ϲ�����’s all-student Bomba & Plena dance troupe. Luz Encarnación, youth programming coordinator and leader of La Casita’s dance troupe, is in charge of choreography and is also producer of the entire Hispanic Heritage Month program at La Casita this year.

The Bomba & Plena Festival dancers will be performing to live music by the Rochester-based group Pleneros D’ Borikén. The group’s members, founder José Mora, Pimo Santiago, José Torres, Daniel De Jesus and vocalist Angel Espada offer lively, engaging performances that often include audience participation. Mora shares that the group writes an original plena for each event at which they perform, adding to the unique experience that each of their shows provides.

A newly installed exhibition at La Casita, Balcón Criollo (Creole Balcony), will be open to the public during the Bomba & Plena Festival celebration and remain on display through Dec. 19. An impressive collection of personal memories, meaningful keepsakes, family photos, native costumes, indigenous crafts, devotional imagery and traditional music instruments are among the hundreds of pieces of memorabilia that represent all of the countries of Latin America. The installation design is the result of a collaborative effort between La Casita’s Encarnación, and local artist Juan Cruz.

Inspired by the work of a renowned installation artist from Puerto Rico, Pepón Osorio, this stunning collection of artifacts loaned by local residents for the show represents the cultural heritage of the spectrum of Hispanic communities in the region, and every item tells a story. A special program is in development involving community gatherings where residents will share the significance these objects, treasured memories and storytelling, all of which will be recorded and preserved for La Casita library’s cultural memory archive.

The Bomba & Plena Festival is free and open to the public, with free parking available. In addition to the performances, light refreshments will be served. La Casita Cultural Center is located at 109 Otisco St., ���ϲ�����.

The reading will be at the YMCA, 340 Montgomery St., in downtown ���ϲ�����, at 7 p.m. Co-sponsored by the , the reading is free and open to the public and will offer American Sign Language interpretation. A book signing by both writers will follow.

While sharing their work, Kaminsky and Kuusisto will demonstrate the poet’s act of listening as a complicated, intricate endeavor that leads to poignant poetry. When we think of poetry, the music of language comes to mind. With the significant elements of their individual poetic perspectives, Kaminsky and Kuusisto will perform selections of poems from their books, which will also be available for purchase before and following the reading.

Ilya Kaminsky

Kaminsky, originally from Odessa in the former Soviet Republic, lost his hearing at the age of four, due to illness. In addition, with English as his second language (having been granted asylum, along with his family, by the American government in 1993), the unique voice of his work adds to the exquisite sense of the language on the page. Prior to committing to poetry, his interests and education were founded in the study of law and he worked as a law clerk for San Francisco Legal Aid and the National Immigration Law Center. Currently, he teaches English and comparative literature at San Diego State University and is director of the Poetry Foundation’s Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute.

Kaminsky ‘s highly recognized collection of poetry is “Dancing In Odessa,” winner of the Tupelo Press Dorset Prize, as well as the prestigious Whiting Writer’s Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Metcalf Award, and Poetry magazine‘s annual Ruth Lilly Fellowship.

Stephen Kuusisto

Kuusisto, who has been blind since birth, has published two poetry collections: “Only Bread, Only Light” and the recent “Letters to Borges,” both from Copper Canyon Press. He is also author of “Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening” and the acclaimed memoir “Planet of the Blind,” a New York Times “Notable Book of the Year.”

A graduate of the Writer’s Workshop at the University of Iowa, and a Fulbright Scholar, Kuusisto is director of the , where he holds a University Professorship in the , and a noted disability rights advocate. In May 2013, Kuusisto traveled to Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan with three other writers on a 10-day reading tour as a part of the cultural ambassadors program cosponsored by the University of Iowa International Writing Program (IWP) and the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State. The goal of this and other similar tours organized by the IWP was to foster understanding, creative connection and exchange for cultural understanding and diplomacy among American artists and those of other nations through the literary arts.

In addition to his books of poetry, Kuusisto is a noted memoirist and commentator of social issues, particularly those centered on the rights of the disabled, both in the United States and throughout the world. He has published many articles for print journals, and has appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “Dateline NBC,” National Public Radio and the BBC.