Cunamacué was founded in 2010 in Oakland, California by Carmen Roman —dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, and educator— born in Lima, Peru, with the purpose of bringing visibility to the presence and cultural knowledge of the African descendant population in Peru. Cunamacué brings awareness of Peru’s African descendants by sharing their deep cultural history through music and dance. Cunamacué promotes the continuity of Afro-Peruvian culture, representing it as a living, vibrant and evolving form whose music and dance can be used as a means of contemporary expression. A reflection of the San Francisco Bay Area, Cunamacué’s movement vocabulary is deeply rooted in Afro-Peruvian dance and uses movements from modern dance and other dances of the African Diaspora to communicate our themes.

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Cunamacué contributes to a more just world by amplifying the history, culture, voices, and ideas of African descendants from Peru using music and dance as the vehicle for transformation. We aim to bring free or low cost high quality arts programs to communities of color, youth and adults, as we believe everyone should have equitable access to quality arts education.

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In 2012 Cunamacué traveled to Peru to perform in Kutuká, an Afro-Peruvian festival in Cañete, and at the National Afro-Peruvian Museum in Lima. We were presented with an award during this trip for our contribution in the rescue and promotion of Afro-Peruvian culture by the City of Cañete. In 2014 our original choreography and musical composition “Spirit, Fertility, Rhythm, and Flavor” was selected out of over 100 auditions to perform at the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival. We have been featured artists at CubaCaribe’s Festival in the years 2011, 2014, 2015, 2017, and 2020 (virtual). Cunamacué’s site specific performance in the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland was featured in the “In Dance” article “Carmen Román and Son de los Diablos”, and Cunamacué was later invited to perform in Dancer’s Group Rotunda Dance Series. Our latest iteration of Son de los Diablos as depicted in Huellas, was featured in In Dance in the article “Afro-Peruvian Resilience and Empowerment Through the Dance Son de los Diablos” published in September 2022. In 2019 Cunamacué was commissioned to choreograph new work that debuted at Worlds Arts West’s San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival. Our executive director Carmen Román, and artistic director Pierr Padilla, were awarded ACTA’s apprenticeship program in 2020 to further Carmen’s studies in Marinera Limeña, Perú’s national dance. Cunamacué has produced documentaries including “Herencia de un Pueblo” which was awarded Best Cinematography and Best Documentary at the San Francisco Dance Film Festival. Since 2020 we have been in collaboration with Oakland’s Afro-Peruvian Fest, the first and only Afro-Peruvian festival outside of Peru, through performances, teaching classes, and sponsoring concerts based in the San Francisco Bay Area.