As part of the Storytelling Project, which is sponsored by Signatur Stiftelsen, the group of young leaders of Dream Orchestra, learned through dance and music, the story of one of the mythical deities of Yoruba and Afro-Cuban culture: Eleggua.
Starting from the influence of slavery that came from Africa to Latin America, the young DO musicians learned in two workshops (the first about dance, and the second cultural), who is Eleggua, the god of roads, how he is represented, how his dramatic interpretation in the dance is, and what the myths and legends are, that exist around this warrior of the Yoruba culture.
In the first workshop, the Cuban dance teacher Yassell Lopez Rodriguez taught them to dance to this deity. He began to explain about Afro-Cuban dance, its origins in Cuba, and some basic elements of Afro-Cuban music that can also be applied to other deities. From there he taught them the basic steps of the bembé, which is danced in African rituals characterized by drum beats. For this, he told them, the connection with the feet and the ground is fundamental. When they already learned this, he introduced them to how to dance Eleggua.
In the second workshop, Ron Davis Alvarez gave the students the song "Canto a Eleggua", which has been performed a cappella by the Cuban female group Sexto Sentido. Starting with presenting this music, he introduced the students to the stories and myths that surround Eleggua within Afro-Cuban culture. At the end, the Dream Orchestra students created a reinterpretation of this song and the stories that were told, with their instruments.
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