Throughout 2024 and 2025, we’ve been running Drumline for Social Change – an initiative started by a group of young people who met around 90mil, a Berlin-based alternative venue that supports grassroots initiatives at the intersection of art, culture, and social justice.
What began as a small drumming project – to gather and learn how to drum together at protests – quickly grew into something bigger. We expanded the invitation to a wider group through our local communities, offering free public workshops where anyone could join and learn collective drumming. This was made possible thanks to the Solidarity Project funding from the European Solidarity Corps.
We ran a series of these workshops in fall 2024 and spring 2025, in collaboration with the 90mil art school, who helped us reach a broader audience through their social media channels. The workshops were well attended and entirely free of charge. We invited a range of drumming experts to co-host, each bringing unique styles and experience: from Greek percussion to rock drumming.
Throughout the year, we participated in protests that resonated with our group – mostly anti-colonial and leftist solidarity initiatives. These included large demonstrations like March 8th (International Women’s Day) and May 1st (International Workers’ Day), as well as many smaller actions.
Some of our members also collaborated with other activist drumming and protest support initiatives in Berlin, such as XR Berlin Drum Break 25 and Tea for Demos.
After a year of running this initiative, we now have a solid set of street-ready drums with straps, a rotating group of activists with basic to advanced drumming skills, and strong connections to other initiatives. We stay in touch through a Signal group, where we share updates and coordinate which protests to attend together.
The project was supported by the European Solidarity Corps. Even after the funding period, the interest remains strong – we plan to continue meeting for rehearsals, joining demonstrations with our drums, and offering more workshops in the future, either volunteer-led or supported by small participation fees.
If you’d like to get in touch about this project, feel free to write to Polina at jonglirium@gmail.com.
