Abstract
Connecting Currents is a production of movement, poetry, and music elucidating the calling water has on the performing mind, body, and spirit, and water’s ability to inspire and facilitate the connection of the African Diaspora through the intercultural dialogue of dancing bodies. The diaspora has retained cultural and kinesthetic intelligences across currents of water and time, embedded in movement and spirituality as practiced through the veneration of Orishas including Yemaya, Oshun, and Olokun. Angira S. Pettit-Pickens (2017) suggests that instead of considering water a site of separation, we should regard the currents of the Atlantic Ocean as great unifiers and preservers of culture for the African Diaspora. Each current carries the retained cultural memories of the African Diaspora, creating one Diasporic force linked together by what has been retained and practiced in our inhabited spaces. These cultural retentions, or currents of connection, are expressed in our language, our dance, and our spirituality.
Connecting Currents is a production of movement, poetry, and music elucidating the calling water has on the performing mind, body, and spirit, and water’s ability to inspire and facilitate the connection of the African Diaspora through the intercultural dialogue of dancing bodies. The Diaspora has retained cultural and kinesthetic intelligences across currents of water and time, embedded in movement and spirituality as practiced through the veneration of Orishas including Yemaya, Oshun, and Olokun. Angira S. Pettit-Pickens (2017) suggests that instead of considering water a site of separation, we should regard the currents of the Atlantic Ocean as great unifiers and preservers of culture for the African Diaspora. Each current carries the retained cultural memories of the African Diaspora, creating one Diasporic force linked together by what has been retained and practiced in our inhabited spaces. These cultural retentions, or currents of connection, are expressed in our language, our dance, and our spirituality.
Figure 2: Spirit of Water: An artistic exploration of the impacts of water on the brown feminine mind, body, and spirit.
References
Alake, Zania. 2021. "Spirit of Water.” By Marsae Mitchell and Marwan AmenRa.
Cuney, William Waring. 1973. “No Images.” In Storefront Church. London: Paul Breman, Ltd.
Hillsong United. 2013. “Oceans (Where Feet May Fail).” By Matt Crocker, Joel Houston, and Salomon Ligthelm. Zion: Hillsong, Capitol CMG.
Hughes, Langston. 2009. The Negro Speaks of Rivers. Illustrated by E. B. Lewis. New York: Disney Jump at the Sun Books.
Pettit-Pickens, Angira S. 2017. “Ripples in the Atlantic: Revisiting the Role of Water in Africans’ Vision of Reality and Survival.” Master’s thesis, Temple University.
