Bullerengue

The Bullerengue series is part of the programme Politics of Rhythm, through which performative practices that embody dance and music are harnessed to cultivate and deepen communitarian knowledge. Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) regularly hosts participatory Bullerengue workshops, which are accompanied by live drumming and facilitated by artists maintaining this ancestral tradition. Through this, the Afro-Colombian maroon art form is kept alive in Berlin, serving as a referent to emancipatory practices, while the endeavour also provides a space for intercultural learning and social cohesion.

Descending from West Africa, Bullerengue is a family of rhythms that developed and remains vibrant in the Colombian Caribbean and the Darién Province in Panama. Bullerengue’s distinctive format is the rueda, or circle, in which participants unify their voices through the repetition of mantra-like choruses that evoke elation and empowerment. Through call-and-response storytelling and an improvisatory dynamic of collective music-making and dancing, these bailes cantados—sung dances—activate mutual awareness and a sense of connection and belonging. Preserved by women within spaces of intergenerational care and knowledge transmission, Bullerengue is founded on forms of communitarian and embodied spirituality and philosophy that have been used for centuries as tools for healing, joy, and resilience. Today, its practice culturally affirms and upholds the histories of resistance rooted in the Afro-diasporic community. Its significance and the palpable wellbeing it stimulates has inspired many women and LGBTQAI+ people to join in its maintenance and promotion, having become a way to resist, soothe, and give testimony of the life stories arising from both local conflicts and systemic oppression. 

HKW’s summer 2023 reopening programme, Acts of Opening Again–A Choreography of Conviviality, set in motion a long-term commitment to the hosting of communitarian rhythmic cultures, beginning with the establishment, nurturing, and rooting of the practice of Bullerengue in Berlin. This process started with the introductory workshop series Bullerengue—Planting the Seeds for Community Healing, featuring the presence of the maestros Yarley Escudero (El Happy), Franklin Hernandez (Lukumi), Alvaro Llerena and Franklin Tejedor, and the maestras Dely Prem and Emelina Reyes (La Burgos), who are tamboleros (drummers), cantadoras (singers) and bailadores (dancers) from San Basilio de Palenque and Palenque de Chucunate, Turbo, Colombia, the territories from which Bullerengue emanated. The workshops were co-facilitated and accompanied by the holistic support and experience of UK-based Colombian cultural organizers and pedagogical project leaders Bullerengue Circle (Esteban Card & Valeria Pacific), and offered dedicated support to those interested in developing a Bullerengue music practice, monthly online follow-ups, and the opportunity to play at the closing Rueda de Bullerengue during the last day of the exhibition O Quilombismo. Of Resisting and Insisting. Of Flight as Fight. Of Other Democratic Egalitarian Political Philosophies. Instruments have remained available for rehearsals outside of the regular sessions, with the resonance of the drums becoming part of the institution’s everyday rhythm.

To wrap up activities in 2023, previous and new participants were invited to take part in Politics of Rhythm: Bullerengue, a session led by Berlin-based drummers and vocal folklore facilitator Carolina Riaño, and the percussionists Leo Mejía and Dante Parraguez. The workshop was followed by the screening María Fernanda Carrillo Sánchez’s documentary Cantadoras—Musical Memories of Life and Death in Colombia (2017), expanding on how traditional music practices, including Bullerengue, contributed to resistance, by alleviating and narrating the experience of violence and showing a way out of it. 

In 2024, HKW hosted an internal pedagogical process in which a group of those interested in learning Bullerengue singing and drumming techniques met on a regular basis, guided by Riaño, Parraguez, and drummer Cristian Betancourt. The conclusion of that year’s internal Bullerengue workshop series was celebrated with Politics of Rhythm: Rueda de Bullerengue—Drumming, Dancing, and Chanting as Ancestral Practice of Resistance and Community Knowledge, transitioning into a new set of public moments of the format that continues in the following years. In 2025, these facilitators are joined again by Mejía, by dancers and choristers Renata Puelma and Séraphime Reznikoff, and other enthusiasts and experienced practitioners to lead the sessions Ruedas de Bullerengue—Practising Communitarian Joy and Resilience. Through these sustained efforts and the collaboration with HKW and other cultural institutions in Berlin, this group aims to form and sustain the first local ensemble working solely to deepen the roots of this ancestral art in the city. 

The rueda is an expanded and welcoming format that depends  and is at its best when it includes a large multitude of people in a convivial and highly affective manner. At its core is allyship and strength in numbers, qualities that form the basis of a plural and emancipated community. Emphasizing the importance of strengthening networks inside Germany and Europe, some of the ruedas also feature the presence and contribution of Hamburg-based music practitioners and facilitators Camilo Angola and Ámbar F. Álvarez. Both lead the traditional Colombian-Caribbean music groups Tambores del Diablo and Cantares del Elba. Through the communing their work fosters, they create pedagogical spaces for political education, especially focusing on providing tools for migrant communities to advance anti-racist work. Their practice honours the legacy of the maestros and maestras that have kept vital cultural heritage which, both historically and in the present day, has helped unify communities, challenge their marginalization, and achieve self-determination. 

In keeping with these efforts, throughout the year HKW regularly offers internal rooms for use by a self-organized group of practitioners, many of whom undertake a long-term engagement with the process of making Bullerengue accessible to more people. This has created an important space for meeting and strengthening the bonds between peoples from South America and the Caribbean, and others living in Berlin. Anyone interested in taking part in this internal practice can meet members of the network at the public rueda workshops.

In today’s European socio-cultural climate, in which far-right and fascist policies increasingly attempt to erase the existence of historically marginalized people and target migrant communities, safe spaces, solidarity, and support—such as those created through the Bullerengue programme—are crucial to continue building a plurality of non-patriarchal, gender-euphoric, and equal futures.