AJE IJO Short Dance Film Series centers the humanity, resiliency, vulnerability of Black & African diasporic people [of all genders], interrogating the western gender binary and interrupting accompanying notions of masculinity and femininity.

Our individual and collective complexity, survival, thriving, and ultimately our healing as a people are at stake, and compel the elaboration of this narrative. To this end, the lm elicits elements of spiritual cosmologies of the African diaspora, particularly those that emerge from the Yoruba divine consciousness, Ifa, and the Orisa (deities) that comprise it.

Featured in this program:

1st Installment: 7 Reflections
(13 min)

2nd Installment: UNCONSCIOUS WOMB
Olokun (male and female). deep blue sea, owner of the oceans. All waters pay tribute to Olokun first. Connected to Yemaya. Deepest ocean; the unknown. Ritual number is 9.

(12 min)

3rd Installment: RIVERS OF NINE
Oya: All 9 children (dead). Representation of winds, hurricanes, lightning storms. Appearances are horsetail whip and machete. Red, Dark red, purple colors. Symbolic of radical change.

(20 min)

4th Installment: IMMORTAL
Olodumare; Creator of the world, finished after Obatala got drunk and couldn’t finish. Name (olo) means keeper of. No active sexuality.

(14 min)