Afro Cuban Dance w/ Victor Alexander

Dance is crucial to understanding Orisha in Yorùbáland and the diaspora. For centuries, the body was a place of black resistance in the colonies. Knowledge is not only expressed in language, words or thoughts, but it is also written in our bodies. By practicing the Orisha dance, this information reaches our minds, hearts and souls.

The class begins with a traditional warm-up that emphasizes the large movements in the shoulder and torso that lead to the Orisha's basic step, which would be dancing and progressively advancing across the floor with step repetitions and ending with a circle where dancers can improvise.

The Yorùbá deities called Orisha are invited to mount the bodies of their initiates. The human personality disappears and gives way to the divine. Gods and goddesses bond with humans, borrow the device from one body, and bring blessings from another dimension.

Host or Publisher People's Center for Cultural & Contemporary Arts