solea1038,
Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post presents an excerpt from the Dec 4, 2022 Daily Kos article by Denise Oliver Velez entitled "Black Music Sunday: Celebrating Changó and Iansã!". That article includes music and dance videos of the orishas Changó (Shango) and Iansã (Yansa, Oya).
This pancocojams post also showcases four YouTube videos of Oya dances from Cuba. i These videos are different from the ones that are featured in that Daily Kos article.
The content of this post is presented for cultural. religious, and aesthetic purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Praises and thanks to Oya and Shango (who is also referred to in the full article that is excerpted in this pancocojams post.) Thanks to Denise Oliver Velez for her cultural writing, activism, and role modeling. Thanks to all those who are featured in these videos and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to the publishers of these videos.
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Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2014/06/brazilian-songs-dances-for-iansa-yansa.html for a 2014 pancocojams post entitled "Brazilian Songs & Dances For Iansã (Yansã, Oya)".
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ARTICLE EXCERPT:.
From https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/4/2138529/-Black-Music-Sunday-Celebrating-Chang-and-Ians "Black Music Sunday: Celebrating Changó and Iansã!" written by Denise Oliver Velez, Dec. 4, 2022
"Dec. 4 may not be listed as a holiday on your calendar, but millions of people in the Caribbean and Brazil, along with African-diasporic religionists here in the U.S., spend the day in celebration of a Christian saint, St. Barbara, who is the public face of two “Orishas” of West African origin. Those “Orishas,” or forces of nature with a god-like quality, are known as Chango or Shango in Spanish-speaking cultures; Xangô in Brazil; Oya or Yansa in Spanish; or Iansã in Portuguese.
It’s always interesting to me how countries portrayed as having majority Roman Catholic populations manage to mask the fact that being Catholic in many cases does not negate that a far older form of spirituality, brought here to this hemisphere via the transatlantic slave trade, is still practiced. In many cases it has grown into larger numbers in these countries than current adherents in West Africa.
Out of those traditions comes a wealth of music, and dance, some of which I have posted here in the past.
[...]
Oya, or Yansa, is the Orisha who rules the winds. Tornados and whirlwinds accompanied by lightning are her element. She is a warrior Orisha who rides to do battle at the side of Shango, her husband. She is also the guardian of the gates to the cemetery. Her symbols are masks, and a horsetail fly-whisk. Her number is nine, said to represent the nine tributaries of the Niger River. She is Catholic, syncretized with The Virgin of Candelaria in Cuba, one of many manifestations of a Black Madonna who came from the old world to the new.
The Yorùbá name “Ọya Ìyánsán” means literally “Oya mother of nine (children)”. Oya is the goddess in charge of wind, tornado, torrential rain and hurricans and beloved wife of Orisha Shango, who is often only called by his name Yor. “ọkọ Ọya”, husband of Oya. Like wind and thunderstorm they cannot be separated one from another. Oya was Ogun’s wife, but left him for Shango. She is also hot-tempered and energetic. In Yorùbáland, Oya is the Orisha of the river Niger. In Cuba she resides at the entrance to the cemetery, where she leads the dead ones and hands them over to the female Orisha Oba and Yewa, who live inside these walls. Walking on the boundary between life and death Oya is closely related to the Yor. “Eégún”, the dead ancestors. She herself had nine stillborn children she is still protecting. With strong winds she can blow away obstacles and bring new things into the life. Oya stands for the female strength in times of struggle, respected for her strong will and fearless through her connection with the world of the deads. Oya is the female warrior goddess and also known for her strong medicines. Oya’s color is mostly burgundy or wine-red. Around her waist she wears a belt with nine different colored pieces of clothes attached, symbols for being the mother of nine dead children. Oya can wear all colors, except black. Sometimes palm fibers from the “palma real,” Shango’s tree, are added.
[...]
She carries an “ìrùkẹ̀” made of a black horsetail. She can hold a “machete” or a “vaina,” a huge painted seed from the flamboyant tree, in her hands. It has the form and almost the size of a “machete” and is used like a rattle to call her. In her dance Oya moves around like a whirlwind or tornado, spins around her axis to the left. She swings her whisk above her head, brings wind and dynamic change, clears and purifies the air. She brings both arms high in the air above her head in mirrored positions and in a sudden powerful movement stretches them downwards to her hips, followed by a wave, a spinal ripple, moving through her body, going from her pelvis up where it twists the head. She is crying out loudly while dancing, looks fierce and strong, aggressive and violent, her movements are impulsive, energetic and characterized by abrupt stops. Some people say one dance of her in the rhythm “shashalokafun” is related to the buffalo, her sacred animal and the steps mimic the gallop of this massive animal."...
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SHOWCASE VIDEO #2: Yoruba Andabo - Oyá Yansa
SHOWCASE VIDEO #3: La Rumba No Va A Morir - Echu Alabbony - Event Yoruba Oya
https://www.atticindependent.ch/en/la...
Isnay Martinez dances for the Yoruba goddess Oya, expressing her power and Barbaro Crespo Richa makes his debut on the Bata Mayor. Enjoy!
SHOWCASE VIDEO #4: oya yansa abbilona
lolo, June 27, 2018
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StarMamboVideo,
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