The bullerengue in Maria La Baja: Construction of a Folklorist Story

Abstract

When it comes to address the bullerengue nowadays, there is a need to rethink some of the standardized ideas of what we understand as “ancestral”, “authentic” or “folkloric”. As all the practices in the Colombian Caribbean Coast, this one has un- dergone many modifications in order to become adapted to the present times, which arises some reflections on the concept Tradition. Therefore, this article aims to do a reflection on the primitive processes that produce sociability regarding the bulleren- gue in Maria La Baja (Bolivar Province), in the light of the concept of folklorism. The methodology herein consists in the biographic analysis of some newest publications as well as the assessment of different testimonials and a personal communication with Wilman Orozco, a prominent character of the bullerengue music in this region. This work allowed drawing the conclusions that the bullerengue in Maria La Baja is an “ancestral” representation that goes beyond the debate about the traditional as something pure and unaltered and is, instead, a folklorist reproduction that the people construct based on accounts of those who construct the bullerengue itself. Due to the foregoing, this article provides a different way regarding what we already know about the bullerengue in Maria La Baja as a product derived from the concept of Folklore. This opened the door towards a not very new assumption, even though it has been scarcely used in relation to the meaning of the transformation processes of the musical traditions in the Bolívar Province and the whole Caribbean Coast.