This work is the result of choreographic research by Fatima Suarez, bringing together movements of the spiritual practice of Candomblé in Brazil and the movements and steps from the repertoire of Isadora Duncan (1877-1927), a pioneer of dance and a significant figure in the in the history of artistic creativity and culture.
For the choreographer, the first inspiration comes from the practices of Candomblé, which reflect the beliefs and understandings handed down by Brazil’s African ancestors, the Yoruba from Nigeria and Benin, expressing the necessity to respect and honor the sacred relationship of nature’s elements and with human beings. The dance is performed with costumes of sea and straw from the Atlantic coast using the music of the Bahia composer Carlinhos Brown, as well as Talavera music, with words in Yoruba and neologisms created by the artist himself, staged and dictated as a theatrical text. Divine entities, called orixás, are mentioned: Ganga, Oxalá, Xangô, which are recognized as forces of nature.
According to the Yoruba peoples, after the world was created, each orixá received divine energy called axé, which gave the orixás the ability to rule over certain areas of the material world.
Each orixá has a specific dance and dance steps and also represents a certain aspect of nature both inside and outside of the religious context. For example: Oxalá corresponds to the air that we breathe and Oyá/Iansã to the winds; Lemanjá is found in the oceans and on beaches; Oxum can be found in the rivers and waterfalls. To contact Oxóssi, the hunter; Ogum, the warrior; and Ossaim, who rules the sacred leaves, the clue is in the forests. To approach Xangô, the god of thunder and lightning, one goes to a stone quarry, as it is very dangerous to be close to a lightning rod.
The second source of inspiration was the movement technique of Isadora Duncan. According to Isadora, the development of her dance was a natural phenomenon – not an invention, but a rediscovery of the classical principles of beauty, motion, and form. Her dances were born of the impulse to embrace life’s bittersweet challenges, meeting destiny and fate head-on in her own whirlwind journey, filled with both tragedy and ecstasy. She was determined to “dance a different dance,” telling her own life story through abstract, universal expressions of the human condition.
The goal of this work was to perform this choreographic research creating a fusion of movements for the African gods of Candomblé (Orixás) and for Isadora’s artistic gestures related to nature and the divine. For the artist, this merger would create images that would somehow relate to the idea of offering, as both relate to the elements of nature and human movements.
