Generales

By: Johansson Cruz Lopera - Journalist

Rincón del Mar, a small coastal village located in the department of Sucre in the Colombian Caribbean region, resonates with the rhythm and tradition of the sung dance of bullerengue. This genre has become a form of political resistance and cultural preservation. Researchers from Universidad de Antioquia's Political Studies Research Group, in collaboration with the Mariamulata community library, are carrying out a research project to conserve and preserve the rhythm.  

The joyful drum is the basis of this musical rhythm that has served as resistance for Afro-Colombian communities in several regions of the country, especially in Rincón del Mar. Photo: Courtesy 

"My land of fishermen beautiful village that I love
To the sound of drums it tells us its tradition 
 
Cantaores and bailaoras let's give life to folklore 
The town where we were born cultivates its tradition." 

Lyrics of the song "Tierra de pescadores" (Land of fishermen) by Jennifer Meza,  
Singer-songwriter and dancer from Rincón del Mar

The torn voice that lingers at the end of each phrase invites the body's movement. Crouching, waiting to catch one of those words, the tambor llamador - known as the tambor macho - enters the picture to color the voice and generate the harmony, accompanied by the tambora, the maracas, the guaracha and the cununo - the happy drum. And there, the sound: the bullerengue or "baile cantao" (sung dance), as it is called in the Rincón del Mar village, San Onofre, a small coastal town located in the department of Sucre, in the Colombian Caribbean region.

In contrast to the joy transmitted by its melodies, this cultural practice masks a form of political resistance from the region's communities. A team of researchers from the Political Studies Group, attached to the Institute of Political Studies, has been working since the second semester of 2022 on the research "Mar de bullerengue, memoria del baile cantao, una contribución de Rincón del Mar a la resistencia política" (Sea of bullerengue, memory of the sung dance, a contribution of Rincón del Mar to political resistance).

"This project was born thanks to the call for papers 'Dialogue of Knowledges,' which seeks to articulate UdeA's academic research with community processes and practices. We saw the opportunity to consolidate a previous project on memory we had been carrying out with the Mariamulata library in Rincón del Mar," said Catalina Tabares Ochoa, a professor at Universidad de Antioquia's Institute of Political Studies and the coordinator of the project.   
According to the researchers - Professor Catalina and two young undergraduate students of political science - the current account of this region has made some knowledge invisible, including the oral tradition, which aims to transmit and preserve knowledge. "This is very powerful in Rincón del Mar because the previous generations found in the sung dance a form of resistance to the increasing precariousness, inequality and pain that they experience daily in the territory," noted Junier Alexander Palacios Mosquera, a researcher and student of political science at UdeA.

Singing and dancing to exist 

"In the town of Rincon  
There was never any resistance  
Because the Cadena arrived  
To impose his rules here  
 
My grandmother confessed to me  
That in the times of Cadena 
His will was done  
Or they would kill anyone." 
  
Lyrics of the bullerengue "No hubo resistencia" (There was no resistance)  
by the Mariamulata Corporation's folkloric group 
 
As these verses describe, Rincón del Mar was a place of armed conflict in the country. In fact, according to the National Center for Historical Memory (Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica - CNMH), from 1997 to 2005, this territory became a port for the loading and unloading of arms and drug shipments. It was also a resting place for some Heroes de los Montes de María Bloc members, attached to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), controlled by Rodrigo Mercado Pelufo, alias Cadena.

"Under Cadena's command, a complex social order was created that conditioned the transit of the population through the streets, deepened gender violence and established hierarchies based on ethnic differences. These conditions brought about strong discriminatory and violent practices against women, the LGBTI population and Afro-descendants in a mostly Afro-descendant community," concluded the report entitled "A Tour through the Landscapes of Violence in Colombia" (Recorrido por los paisajes de la violencia en Colombia) by the CNMH.

This research project has brought about a generational encounter that helps conserve and preserve this tradition of sung dance. Photo: Courtesy

But they were not only stories of violence; they have been a form of cultural memory. The bullerengue songs tell the region's stories, daily life and knowledge. "This territory has an inseparable relationship with the communities through fishing, agriculture, santeria and medicinal knowledge. It is necessary to recover and preserve these traditions," said the young researcher.

Bullerengue is a musical genre and traditional dance from the Caribbean region of Colombia. It has its roots in Afro-Colombian communities and is a cultural expression recognized as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. Its cadenced and catchy rhythm characterizes it. It is usually performed with drums, maracas, cununos -small drum- and guacharacas, a percussion instrument. This artistic expression has served as a form of resistance, cultural preservation and empowerment for these communities.

Part of this recovery and conservation work, as the student Junier Palacio mentions, was already being carried out in the Mariamuleta library, which has been working with the territory's communities for more than 20 years. "The recovery of the memory that surrounds this practice constitutes a strategy of political empowerment and resistance in an extractivist context in which external actors with different interests have generated processes of appropriation of the territory based on the rupture of the social fabric and the weakening of cultural identity," said María Camila Ribón González, a project researcher and Political Science student at UdeA.

"The damn shark hurts often. 
He does not like costeños 
And chases the cachacos  
 
The damn shark is a perverse animal. 
And whoever kills the shark  
Wins one million pesos." 
 
Lyrics of the bullerengue "El tiburón" (The shark)  
by Alberto Ocón, inhabitant of Rincón del Mar.

Rincón del Mar is also a victim of the beauty of its landscape and beaches. How tourism has been managed is today a problem for the inhabitants. "There are extractive tourists who enjoy what the territory offers: the food, the islands, the mangrove, the plantón, the party... But this tourism has little to do with the culture and much less with a contribution to its care. We have found that the practice of the sung dance strengthens the identity and culture of the Rincomarense population that the logics of tourism, the armed conflict, and the structural and circumstantial violence silence," said Professor Tabares Ochoa.

In this village, there is a struggle not to let people forget who they are, their practices and where they come from, and "to the extent that their cultural practices and traditions, which strengthen their identity, are recognized, the extractivist logics that multiple actors exercise in the territory can be confronted with greater power," said the project coordinator.

The Mar de bullerengue research will result in four important products that are already underway:

• Estaciones de la memoria: Plays that include dance and song. They represent the research process and portray and dignify the memory of the sung dance. It has been presented at the Children's Literature Festival in Rincón del Mar and the Isla Fuerte Film Festival. 
• Songbook: Recovery of the lyrics of bullerengue, which reflect the daily life and knowledge of Rincón del Mar.  
• Dictionary: Compilation of words, expressions and terms that reflect the knowledge of the territory and help conserve words that have gradually fallen into oblivion. 
• Cartography of the dance: The construction of the geography that reflects the spaces, practices and characters of the sung dance in Rincón del Mar. 
• Podcasts: The biographies of the cantaores and cantaoras of Rincón del Mar.