Boka Marimba is a ten-member dance band that plays exhilarating, positive-energy music from Zimbabwe and other areas of southeastern Africa. The music is in the Shona style: Melodic themes and variations layered in polyrhythmic, cyclic patterns. People, on hearing this music for the first time, have often described the feeling as one of coming home. Some have spoken of dancing for the first time in their lives, or for the first time ever out of the privacy of their living rooms. People of all ages respond with enthusiasm and delight. At one outdoor festival, an elderly gentleman came up and said, “This was some of the best entertainment of my life. I tried to stay seated, but finally had to get up and dance.”

The band’s instrumentation consists of seven marimbas (three sopranos, two tenors, a baritone, and a bass), gourd shakers called hosho, mbira (“thumb piano”), and drums. The songs are sung in the Shona language.

The sheer pleasure of playing is the glue that bonds the band together, and the desire to share this music with others is the fuel that fires Boka Marimba.

Current members are Aisha Laura Beck, Nathan Beck, Eric Berkley, Elgin Dean, MyLinda King, Eric Miller, and Karin Tauscher