Embodied Wisdom Through Cuban Yoruba Dance
Humans have always valued wisdom.
Seen as an “ideal endpoint” of human development, wisdom encompasses criteria such as self-transcendence, personal strength, spiritual change and feelings of unity (Staudinger & Glück, 2011 and Glück et al, 2013).
Despite modernity’s advances, humans continue wrestling with age-old problems such as personal relationships to the self, others, and the universe. Studying wisdom allows an exploration of more meaningful lives.
Modern scientific theories favour empirically-backed theoretical, disembodied approaches of wisdom study. A disembodied wisdom approach is common in the West, subscribing to “mind/body dualism, [emphasizing] the mental and theoretical over the experiential and kinesthetic” (Daniel, 2005, p. 57). Under this framework, the West values theory over practice.
On the other hand, cultures such as Cuban Yoruba dance emphasizes an embodied, pragmatic approach towards wisdom. Wisdom is learned by participating in communal ritual ceremonies of dance and music.
Embodied Wisdom of Cuban Yoruba Dance
Cuban Yoruba dance draws upon centuries of collective wisdom expressed through embodied knowledge. Embodied knowledge involves and focuses on wisdom acquired and obtained through the human body or suprahuman body (the result of spiritual transformation while dancing). Daniel notes that “the dancing bodies accumulate spirit, display power, and enact as well as disseminate knowledge” (Daniel, 2005, p. 59). Cuban Yoruba dance is a form of embodied wisdom connecting the individual to both his/her community as well as the spirit world through shared ritual ceremonies of music and dance.
Cuban Yoruba dance traditions arose from the African-diaspora population (especially the Yoruba people) who suffered under centuries of slavery in Cuba and the Americas. Dance “offered relief, potential rejuvenation, and the promise of ecstasy or transcendence” (Daniel, 2005, p.61), unlike the harsh labour and psychological demands of everyday life in slavery.
Spirit entities and divinities known as Orishas manifest themselves through dancers, offering pertinent advice and counsel to community members in the form of dance and movement. Many Cuban Yoruba dances “suggest myths and retell cultural stories, but most important, charter and encourage social behavior in present everyday lives.” (Daniel, 2005, p. 1).
Through Cuban Yoruba dances such as those of Oya, Ochun, Yemaya and Chango, the collective memory, stories and values of the Yoruba people are preserved, learned and shared among the community engaging in these ritual ceremonies of music and dance.
Dance is a mode of access to “stored body knowledge” through the vehicle of performances and ceremony (Daniel, 2005, p. 50). Due to their central place and role in Cuban society (especially among Yoruba descendants), understanding dance reveals much about the human experiences and values of Cuban Yoruba participants. Dance is a form of nonverbal communication system operating as “body language [which] frequently replaces verbal communication as a more compactly subtle and dynamic form” (Daniel, 2005, p. 53) among the Cuban Yoruba people.
For dance cultures that thrive on embodied wisdom, dance creates “religious, social and galactic harmony” (Daniel, 2005, p. 54), allowing community members to make sense of their place on Earth as well as their relationship to themselves, others and the world. Dance is a form of “social medicine” intimately connected with the “social well-being of individuals and to the solidarity of a social community” (Daniel, 2005, p. 55). Another example may be the direct way Orisha dances provide “historical catharsis, contemporary release, and meaningful social action” (Daniel, 2005, p. 252).
Nonverbal messages are conveyed visually and expressed physically. Values such as “persistence, deliberation, dedication, reliability, resourceful resilience, and, ultimately, calm, strength, and endurance are all taught, learned over time, and transferred beyond the dance/music event to other arenas of social life” (Daniel, 2005, p. 252). These dance performances teach “balance, discipline and humanity” (Daniel, 2005, p. 252) through multicolored and multisensory experiences not easily replicated besides by engaging in the dance itself. The ritual performance of dance express a form of experiential wisdom, meaning and ability to live life integrating all facets of existence in a way that written, theoretical communication cannot match.
Oya — Female Strength
Oya’s dance reveals female strength and the virtues of balance within Cuban Yoruba culture. She emphasizes “the warrior-like strength of womankind” (Daniel, 2005, p. 247) as well as the tornado energy of change. When evoking Oya, the dance “is full of independent womanpower, but also fierce fighting power for the community” (Daniel, 2005, p.250).
Oya reminds dancers and spectators of the virtues of strength present and possible in feminine energy. She combines physicality and mental force to create activist energy, curing and resolving life’s difficulties.
Transforming oneself through dancing Oya’s steps evokes her memory and personality. This act strengthens the community’s relationships with both the Orisha (Oya) and each other (Daniel, 2005, p. 250).
Oya’s dance recalls female strength and wisdom. Her stories (pataki’s) reveal her personality and life lessons. Through her energy expressed kinetically in dance, she provides advice and powerful models in times of “struggle and tenacity” (Daniel, 2005, p. 250).
Oya reminds us of the “preciousness of life and the precariousness of death.”
Ochun — Femininity and Self-Empowerment
Ochun’s dance evokes total femininity. Beautiful Ochun “represents woman as the essence of young and vibrant female energy” (Daniel, 2005, p. 257) and her dance reveals much about Cuban Yoruba culture’s attitudes toward femininity and female-ness. Ochun brings forth notions of balance and contrast present in all women and humankind at large (all Orishas can be both male and female, despite popular preferences depicting them as exclusively one or the other).
Ochun focuses on the “sensual, soft, seductive, and simultaneously strong energy of women” (Daniel, 2005, p. 257). Through Ochun we recognize the beautiful articulation and value of the female body in Cuban Yoruba culture as well as the strength and healthy physical conditions of the female form depicted through dance. Ochun is “the part of every female that is happy within herself” (Daniel, 2005, p. 257). Dancers evoking Ochun engage in a “call for self-empowerment, the mental aspect of the totally healthy body” (Daniel, 2005, p. 257).
Dancers of Ochun learn to love themselves, accept themselves and their bodies, at the same time recognizing the potent power of “mental shrewdness, keen analysis and acute thinking” (Daniel, 2005, p. 257) paired with sensual beauty and youthful radiance.
Ochun’s dance reverberates her “win-win approach and impressive satisfaction of self while satisfying others” (Daniel, 2005, p. 257) among the ritual community. Dancing Ochun allows dancers to tap into Ochun’s ways of thinking and problem-solving (by recounting her ingenuity expressed through her stories and legends), as well as reaffirming female power, self-power, and authority over the self.
Yemaya — Nurturing Community
Rounding off the major female Orishas is the dance of Yemaya, the caring force and essence of nurturing. Yemaya is the “source of existence”, intricately tied with the shape of a circle, the oceans and salt water. Known as “the mother of all” (Daniel, 2005, p. 268). Yemaya teaches valuable lessons of community through her dance. Due to the relative ease of her dance, her dance embodies confidence and possibilities of creation.
Because Yemaya’s dance is simple, she encourages community participation, reinforcing “that through ceremonial repetition the community learns a social and spiritual lesson” (Daniel, 2005, p. 268).
Yemaya’s dance connects dancers and participants to others and the universe in relational ways, emphasizing our “interconnectedness as communities and as humans on the planet” (Daniel, 2005, p. 268).
Yemaya reveals the great importance Yoruba people place upon community and the creative forces associated with life. Rather than simply reading about it in a book, members of the community are challenged to practice these wisdom lessons of community, interconnectedness and confidence by repeatedly engaging in shared dance.
Chango — Strength and Masculinity
The final Orisha explored here is Chango, the force and power of total male energy. Chango embodies the powerful traits of masculinity valued and prized within Cuban Yoruba culture. Chango “is the wittiest, the most handsome, and the most persuasive. He is masculine energy at the height of its strength and physical force…male lover, provider, and protector” (Daniel, 2005, p. 263). By dancing Chango, dancers and members of the community realize and recognize their own strength and masculinity.
Through the dance, dancers “mimic or exude the confidence, individual assurance, and self-esteem that are part of most young males — their Chango dimension” (Daniel, 2005, p. 263). Regardless of whether the dancer themselves identifies as male or female, they transform themselves through dancing Chango to activate or re-engage the part of themselves embodying Chango’s bold characteristics. Chango’s dance details the collective opinion of Cuban Yoruba people on what it means to be masculine.
Chango reminds us of the “responsibilities of strength and power, and on the skill of effective communication” (Daniel, 2005, p. 263).
Learning and performing the dance of Chango reminds us of our humanity, connectedness with others as well as the dormant power(s) and expression of values latent within all of us.
Community Wisdom Through Dance
Cuban Yoruba dance culture is not the only form of embodied wisdom culture out there. In similar ways to the Orisha dances of the Cuban Yoruba people, the dances in “Haitian Vodou and Bahian Candomble” all exhibit wisdom-inducing and wisdom-expressing functions among their respective communities (Daniel, 2005, p. 265). By engaging in these ritual ceremonies, participants in Cuban Yoruba, Haitian Vodou and Bahian Candomble cultures access different community knowledge which instructs “social cohesion and cosmic balance” (Daniel, 2005, p. 265). This knowledge is learned “from observation, witnessing, modeling, and active participation” (Daniel, 2005, p. 265) in dance and ritual ceremony, allowing active methods of learning different from the theoretical book models that dominate Western traditions.
Because of verbal dialogue’s diminished role within dance, members of the community are encouraged to reach their own conclusions after witnessing abstract ritual ceremonies. In this way, the ritual ceremonies of dance provides a collective community process and engagement in periodical self-reflection and dynamic-referencing to make sense of, and/or solve problems on both the individual and community level (Daniel, 2005, p. 266).
Much of today’s educational systems belittle embodied wisdom and refuse to treat such forms of wisdom and knowledge seriously. Western and Western-influenced disembodied cultures often categorize the arts as lesser than “real” educations of sciences or business (Daniel, 2005, p. 264). From this perspective, disembodied cultures with a high preference for theoretical and scientific knowledge and a dismissive attitude toward embodied knowledge may find that the dance wisdom from the Cuban Yoruba tradition do not constitute as wisdom at all. Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.
Since the times of slavery, “disembodied knowledge has dominated the Americas as a valued social paradigm…[people have been] encouraged to think of scientific knowledge as superior to, rather than equal to, practical, experiential, or kinesthetic knowledge” (Daniel, 2005, p. 57).
Embodied knowledge may prove key to balancing “the disruptive social behaviours and debilitating states of self-worth” (Daniel, 2005, p.57) found today in cultures wholly focused on disembodied intellectual knowledge.
References and Further Reading
Ardelt,M.(2003).Empirical assessment of a three-dimensional wisdom scale. Res.Aging 25, 275– 324. doi:10.1177/0164027503025003004
Baltes,P.B.,andStaudinger,U.M. (2000). Wisdom: a meta heuristic (pragmatic)to orchestrate mind and virtue towards excellence. Am.Psychol. 55, 122–136.doi: 10.1037/0003- 066X.55.1.122
Daniel, Y. (2005). Dancing wisdom: Embodied knowledge in Haitian Vodou, Cuban Yoruba, and Bahian Candomblé. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Glück, J., König, S., Naschenweng, K., Redzanowski, U., Dorner, L., Straßer, I., & Wiedermann, W. (2013). How to measure wisdom: Content, reliability, and validity of five measures. Frontiers in Psychology Front. Psychol., 4. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00405
Levenson,R.,Jennings,P.A.,Aldwin, C.,andShiraishi,R.W.(2005). Self-transcendence, conceptual-ization and measurement. Int.J. Aging Hum.Dev. 60, 127–143. doi:10.2190/XRXM- FYRA-7U0X- GRC0
Staudinger, U. M., & Glück, J. (2011). Psychological Wisdom Research: Commonalities and Differences in a Growing Field. Annual Review of Psychology Annu. Rev. Psychol., 62(1), 215–241. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.121208.131659
Webster,J.D.(2003).An exploratory analysis of a self-assessed wisdom scale. J. AdultDev. 10, 13–22.doi:10.1023/A:1020782619051
