Venezuelan Dance Group in the Bay Area Keeps Culture Alive for a New Generation

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On a recent Sunday afternoon in a Campbell dance studio, Michille Paulin and Carolina Meneses were busy trying to explain to a group of young kids their roles in a dance routine based on El Calypso de Callao, a festival from Venezuela.

The dancers will wear a lot of gold for the performance, the women tell the children, because the routine celebrates El Callao, a city in Venezuela where people from the Caribbean nation of Trinidad moved to work in gold mines centuries ago.

“Are they millionaires?” one child asks, astonished.

“Oh yes,” Meneses replies. “There’s a lot of gold in El Callao.”

The lesson was part choreography, part history and culture class. Paulin and Meneses are co-founders of Dulce Tricolor, a group they founded in 2019, focused on teaching traditional folk dances from Venezuela.

The group’s mission of celebrating Venezuelan culture feels even more relevant now, as the country’s political woes are making headlines with the U.S. government’s capture of the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro.

“I’ve been in the U.S. for 23 years, and I feel that I’m very well acculturated to the U.S., but I miss my roots, I miss my traditions, I miss my country,” said Paulin, 46.

“This was a way to keep it alive for me, for my kids, for our community and then most importantly to share with the Bay Area what Venezuela is. And to make sure that everybody knows that we are more than what they see these days on the news.”

The future of Venezuela is unclear, but its political and economic instability has plagued the South American nation for nearly two decades, forcing a quarter of the population to emigrate.

Still, Americans have little understanding ofthe  Venezuelan people or culture.

The Venezuelan diaspora in the Bay Area is relatively small. An estimated 770,000 Venezuelan natives lived in the United States in 2024, with 3%, or about 23,000, in California, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

I wanted to find out more about the Venezuelan community in the Bay Area, so I reached out to Paulin to learn about Dulce Tricolor.

The group, formed in 2019, obtained nonprofit status and now has about two dozen members who perform at events all over the Bay Area, including an annual Christmas showcase in December.

The group is divided into age groups — ages 4 to 7, 8 to 15, and 15 and up — that practice every Sunday at a dance studio tucked away in a strip mall.

After moving to the Bay Area in 2017, Paulin struggled to expose her three kids to Venezuelan culture here.

“Although we speak Spanish at home and we eat arepas and all the stuff, having something more structured was better,” Paulin said.

Seven years ago, she was shopping in a grocery store when a woman overheard her speaking, recognized her accent and invited her to join a WhatsApp group for Venezuelan women in the Bay Area. That chance encounter led to the formation of Dulce Tricolor.

“I have friends from everywhere, but being close to Venezuelans gives me a special fulfillment I get out of being with people that speak the same language and the same culture,” Paulin said. “It was very exciting to find this group.”

For Paulin and Meneses, preserving and sharing Venezuelan traditions has been a lifeline in their adopted homes.

“It has been amazing because at first there were not too many Venezuela people,” said Meneses, who left Venezuela in 2010 and now lives in Campbell. “In these last few years, a lot of people that came from Venezuela and that is good for one part, but it’s not for another part because a lot of people are leaving our country for the situation. But, also, we have been building a very beautiful community.”

When I asked the young dancers what they took from being part of Dulce Tricolor, they said things like “confidence,” “community,” and a “fun time with my friends.”

Watching the kids practice reminded me of the years I spent learning and performing traditional Mexican folklorico dances when I was in elementary school. Looking back, those were some of the most formative experiences of my childhood because they reinforced pride, appreciation and understanding of my Mexican roots.

It’s empowering to not just be exposed to a cultural tradition, but to embody it and act as a representative.

The group’s next performance is slated for March 1 at Fuego Sports Bar in Sunnyvale that will feature music, live performances, food and a community forum.

The idea, Paulin said, is to combine tradition and celebration with taking time for Venezuelans to process the current moment with each other.

“We don’t know what the future will bring. We don’t really know if the future will be better or not, based on what happened recently,” Paulin said.

The event is about “giving that space for people to express, let the feelings flow, because it’s conflicting right now. Some people are happy, some people are not happy, people are stressed, some are feeling many different things.”

The day I visited the group’s rehearsal, a group of adults assembled in the back parking lot to practice for the March 1 event. They wanted to play the music live, even though they are amateur musicians, and were horrified when they realized my recorder was on while they played.

Among the songs they plan to play are “Mis Ilusiones,” about hope for a better future, and “Venezuela,” which Paulin described as an unofficial national anthem.

Paulin said hearing the music of her homeland gives her hope that, despite the uncertainty of the current moment, there might be a time soon when more Venezuelans can hear it in person at home.

“I still have the hope that things are going to change,” she said. “The way we feel that we support Venezuelans at home, being here in the U.S., is by keeping Venezuela alive and making sure that people don’t only listen to the bad side of the news, but also to know what Venezuela was, and hopefully will be soon enough.”