Yoruba body attitude

The Yoruba People are intensely spiritual and philosophical. An emphasis on balance and moderation is a key theme played out in complex was throughout the culture. The use of body as a linguistic tool was particularly interesting. In western associations with body attitude, poise and posture play a small role in our everyday communication, however, wit in the Yoruba community, the body has a language as complex and nuanced as the vernacular. It is a communicative tool, which is intrinsically linked to a person’s spirit. Body movement and action can be in conjunction or in place of verbal communication, and can evoke, punctuate and elaborate messages and information. It is subversive, coded and complex. It’s complex and stylized nature seems syncretic to Black dance in the new world, where due to the forbiddance of many cultural identifiers, language, dance, music, etc, communications became highly coded. Dancing was illegal for slaves because of its communicative powers, and while many of the movements were disguised into shuffles or slides, its function as a communicative vehicle was a strong part of artistic resiliency during and post slavery in America. Understanding the spirit of the black body is often a confounded history, seemingly lost over time, oppression and distance, however, there is an inheritance of language, body and mind, though oven convoluted, that is clear and evident across the Diaspora.