Maraca Bruja
Maraca Bruja is a local outfit performing traditional sounds of the Caribbean coast of Colombia. The music they perform is called Gaita, a folkloric music from the Bolivar region of Colombia near la Sierra Nevada, where it’s believed its the origin of the instrument.
““My experience as an immigrant has been very much about understanding who I am, and this music has given me an identity, especially in a city as diverse as NY” ”
The gaita is a wooden pipe, carved from a local cactus from the region and topped with a mixture of beeswax and charcoal powder to hold the quill, this instrument is meant to be played as a couple, Macho y Hembra. The female version has 5 holes and is the one that carries the melody, while the “macho” player drives the pace with one hand on the gaita and on the other a Maraca. The rythmn comes from the African drums which include the Tambora, Alegre y llamador.
The members of Maraca Bruja met at a Bulla en el Barrio workshop, another local group performing Colombia traditional music.
They were all interested in learning to play gaita music so they signed-up for music classes with Martin Vejarano, a Colombian producer who has been championing traditional Colombian sounds in NYC for 2 decades. They formed Maraca Bruja early in the summer of 2019 as a way to get together in Prospect Park to not only practice but also to connect to their roots and share their experiences. In August of 2019 they traveled to San Jacinto for the National Gaita Festival in Colombia, where they spent a week eating and sleeping Gaita culture, surrounded by groups from all over the country and sharing the roof with master Rafael Perez Garcia.
They perform gaita as an act of resistance, because gaita is resistance. It’s ancestral music that has been invisible to most people in Colombia, surviving through oral tradition generation after generation. It’s music that guides a group of people searching for their origins, for connection with their past as a way to understand where they want to go. Maraca Bruja’s goal is to perform this music with respect to the past, bringing a honest, humble but powerful sound to el Barrio. OYELO!
