It breathes like a character

Bone is to wood as skin is to paint. arms outstretched. Branches overhung. Feet walking. Stones rolling. Women singing. The wind talking through the leaves. In a production the set or location of the story breathes like a character. A city street has no soul without its inhabitants. What is it that let’s you know you are on Bathurst Street and not Yonge Street? It is the personality injected into the tarmac, the walls, the street lights, the air that circulates around that street by the people who claim that space. No two places are the same, no two stories are the same, no two sets are the same.

An actor in a costume can and must never be just that. An actor in a costume is a person we pass on the street, ignore at the bus stop- someone you share a brief moment with in a restaurant. If the costume is built correctly, the set is beautifully designed and that actor is committed we forget it is a show at all and find ourselves startled at the raising of the lights and the taking of bows.

Confession. I sit eagerly anticipating the crafted wisdom of Obeah Opera’s set and costume designer, Julia Tribe. As a writer it is always engaging to listen to someone who speaks in imagery. The jargon of her field unfamiliar to me but that only serves increase my desire to know more. The firs thing I want to know is her initial reaction to the word, obeah.

TW: What first comes to mind when you hear the word Obeah?

JT: “What does Obeah mean? and its an opera. So I know it has dramatic extremes. Operas are usually high emotion and for a designer that’s very exciting.”

TW: Are there colours that express high emotion?

JT: When I think of a palette that expresses high emotion I think of bold, strong colours that showcase the depth of the story. As a designer you think how can I visually portray the words and sounds of the story.

TW: The story is set in a 17th century Puritan town how do you recreate that?

JT: Well beyond it just being set in the town, I know there is a journey that the characters are going on and both the set and costume needs to express that. I am fusing both the recognition of Tituba’s ancestry and her Puritan predicament. Set and Costume design are extensions of story it is stagnant but it needs to move, it needs to emote like the voices in the story. So everything must reflect that and also the actors need to be able to flow through the space and in their costumes naturally. It can’t feel like a production its suspended reality.

TW: What are you taking from this production?

JT: I’m taking knowledge. I am learning about Tituba, a story that really hasn’t been properly told and its an important one. Using the vehicle of the Opera breathes new life into the experience as well which is breathtaking. I am also blessed to be learning more about the Orishas and the Yoruba religion. A window has been opened where I have been given the opportunity to see into a time and place of struggle and painful misconceptions. Its important to understand the past of self and the past of others.

TW: What would you say to someone who wants to enter the set and costume design world?

Feed your imagination. Watch as many productions as you can and focus on the set, really take it in. Volunteer where you can and talk  to people who are in the industry. On a more practical level, look into those two disciplines, study the craft and never stop learning.

Tituba

Puritans

Elder/Yemaya

Domestic Slave

Djab Molassi

Obeah Opera- Preliminary Set Design 1

Painted Set Pieces

More painted set pieces

The Toiling of Creation

 

 

beyond airport blues

picking up where i left off several days ago (am losing track of dates now), but you may recall me and jajube having landed in sao paulo en route back to toronto…

i haven’t posted anything in recent dailies as the first week of obeah opera rehearsal days had me tied tight into early morning starts running into short breaks into lunch or dinner then back into rehearsing with interviews or planning/production meets in between and a few hours sleep tucked in where possible.  and of course the show is running laps in my head 24/7 now: comes with every rehearsal period mind you. usually it’s just the occasional actors’ lines or sound design music which stick, but with this opera, melodies infuse harmonies on top of rhythms so constantly that there are literally 3-4 songs in easy canter across my head at any given moment of each day; and very few things can actually displace them.  memories of brazil being part of that exception.

ipanema beyond sunset

i may be walking/or more likely riding to rehearsal and my heart pops: “i love brazil”.  not a new thought by any means, but every so often it’s reiterated and a flood of pictures and moments rush in.

moments such as our farewell 13 hour layover in sao paulo which turned up a not-too-brisk trip by taxi to the local suburban haunt named bosque park (on the very mini side of toronto’s high park with little boys and their dads flying kites, bigger boys cruising an elevated pick-up spot, joggers/speed walkers/strollers/a tightrope artist, teens and young’uns just hanging out).  and there was our one last taste of the brazilian poor people’s jewel of a fruit now u.s. stock market/2-arm bandits’ latest cash crop: acai of the palm tree genus… we were craving scoops of this purple paradise served as a sorbet/smoothie style bowl with fresh ripe banana slices and sprinklings of crisp granola at a sit down/not take out dessert counter.  or the one hour search for our checked baggage with no portuguese on our tongues to grease the latenite frenzied banter between us and the various local airline agents before sitting calmly to a free buffet/dinner served at 1am in the airport’s sushi spot (no fish or seaweed included), courtesy of our new friendly carrier american airlines and their slight/flight delay that would have us not leaving sao paulo until 3am…

‘next day’/i mean later that morning we would wake up in miami, my neck wondering if i secretly sold it to a bobble doll during the night, my teeth with no recall of the row between them & brush & paste yet obviously the butt of the resulting malice, and the rest of my body totally confused as to why we not home yet!?!  with all the time spent in airport land we should have been disembarking/final destination and be home. instead we had american customs and immigration and another 4-5 hours hanging in miami international before we would even smell toronto.

let’s not talk about the fact that we were still wearing yesterday’s clothes; given that jajube’s spare gear was all of the ‘back home in toronto/winter’ variety, and all of my extra dress intended to shield me from a chilly welcome once we land at pearson international was mistakenly stuffed in my one checked bag! which we had not seen or heard/tell of since we left rio, thanx to “air canada…” (sung maple leaf/stand while you sing/bilingual version style), whose fearless but couldn’t care-less staff decided that closing their check-in a full hour before boarding and effectively bumping almost a dozen passengers at 9:25pm on the wednesday night before the thursday morning we needed to be home leaving us stranded in (frigging) sao paulo was quite alright!  but that’s another rant, tempered by the fact that we were eventually (20 hours later) reunited in near tears (actually just plain relief) with our travel belongings almost made orphans by air canada: our homeland’s native grifter.

yes, a full day and then some after we reluctantly parted company with rio, a lightly raining toronto sky still baffled by a winter not yet come, welcomes us home.  it’s a welcome not unlike the thunder storm on our first night in rio: hellos and goodbyes in water songs.

up side/back side/rio side

but lest we forget: i am singing brazil in order to displace obeah opera tunes for at least a few moments.

as brazil and toronto and everything in between morphs into one mass with rehearsal eclipsing all life, i push in/to the moment when memories trump future, when ‘letting go’ eases in via the gentle caress of ilha grande’s slow motion, or the cool dark-nite sands of ipanema beach, or the up and down eye-full of selaron’s escalera (tell you about these amazing steps of lapa in my next post), or the unexpected surrender to corcovado’s iconic and statuesque gaze…

and i’m released in song.

On matters of becoming

To portray a character you must first become the character. To portray the character with seamless precision you must imagine yourself becoming that character in a vacuum, in darkness, in silence, in stillness, in nothingness. An actor must be so convincing so much so that without lighting, sets and costumes the audience sees the colours, hears the sounds, even tastes the world in which the character lives. Obeah Opera is a production that demands this level of performance from all cast members; complete character immersion.

Director ahdri zhina mandiela takes the cast through a series of exercises as a part of a process called portraiture. The intention is to nurture their fluidity of character. They must understand both the puritans and the slaves because they are both. They need to see the forest in their minds, the courtroom, the jail cell, they must become the world of Obeah Opera. Rehearsals begin on a production long before actors and set ever meet face to face. The set is a compliment to the character, the place and time it represents cannot be brought to life if the characters that live their are not authentic.

The makings of a forest

The density among the trees

What the body can do

What is most amazing about sitting in the background witnessing these portraits is the silence. Everyone in the room is silent. It is only periodically broken by the director’s voice directing another actor to join the forest. The approach the forest, they look around, they wait, they think and they assimilate. As the night progressed the small group would become a place of worship, the chains that restrict us and the courthouse in which the healers were persecuted.

Becoming the chains that restrict us

a place of worship

A blessing maybe?

Chains, Chains, Chains

They entered the small studio, as singers and performers but from my watchful eye they left the studios in character. The countdown to opening night begins.

wednesday, january 11th, 2011: airport (bl) rues

so neither rio or me & jajube seem to want to say goodbye.

we wake up as planned with 2 hours to dress, eat breakfast, check out, and catch a cab to the airport.  little did we know that all our timings were off – mainly because we forgot to re-check breakfast serving time (not 8-11am as we assumed, but 7-10am) and check out was not up/until noon but 10am!  we scramble like the eggs we never eat, have a great brekki of papaya/honeydew melon/mango & guava/cashew juice, plus pack cheese sandwiches to go.  grab our luggage and return the room keys, have the front desk call our taxi and wait.

taxi isn’t coming and noon is approaching while we’ve been engrossed in a tv documentary (broadcast in english) on the rise and fall in marijuana’s popularity and illegality; so we aren’t getting anxious about the time yet.  but then we notice during one of the long 10 minute commercial breaks that we are still waiting, so young woman at the front desk help us to hail a cab on the street and we are off… well barely.  traffic in rio is thick most anytime during the day, especially down/in the town.

not to panic tho/yet, we get on the highway after several stolen last glimpses at the constant up and down/hill & gully or high rise/low spread of rio, and the world famous cristo de redentor (christ the redeemer) monument towering in the distance… and for several minutes i am awash in vivid memories of 6 days ago when me and jajube and a crowd of other local and foreign tourists transported by a small two-car electric train cum new-style trolley slowly ascended corcovado (or hunchback) mountain to stand at the feet of this statue full of awe and art deco kitsch. up there on the apex of corcovado’s world renowned hill… which most people outside of brazil would recall from tv or film as the central piece of real estate engendering a panoramic view of touching down in rio de janeiro… up there on that clouding-over afternoon, scores of us stood at the feet of redentor and i’m certain were converted (from tourists to simple supporters of art in public spaces) by the trust in its gentle stony gaze, made visible in fleeting glimpses only.  with each tiny gulp of a clear view of the redentor up close became most personal as we cheered and darted into picture frames to drink in the art with tiny canon hd cams and iphones.

at the feet of redentor

on this clear wednesday, i’m sure redentor and his new set of hilltop/sky high visitors could see our airport cab in its steady, unhurried pace.  i want to sing out: ‘fly!’  as my mind is now racing to figure how to get out of the taxi, luggage and all, check in, pass thru security and actually board this domestic flight to sao paulo in the 15 minutes left before take-off.  do i need to say we miss the flight?  and must now plan how to get to sao paulo before our late night toronto departure…

aaiy yiye yiye, technology just always manage to bruk down when you need it most, no? i don’t mean the cab; cause we in the airport now, and i’m trying to hook up a skype call to miami (to our internet travel agency!) but the regular airport wi-fi is on the fritz, while the pay as u-go/hotspot zones are all in portuguese which i did not happen to learn before traipsing here to rio or during our 10-day stay.  i am singing inside but not the happy blues of obeah opera conjured on previous days.  just about now i could hold tight to redentor’s left or right hand, give a karaoke squeeze, swallow some clouds, open my eyes and be in sao paulo…

one long-distance phonecard later, three calls to miami, 90 minutes of waiting around, and we’re in line for new tix to the sao paulo lap. extra saddened to be leaving rio… boarding passes in hand (and a few hundred reais/braizilian currency lighter) we head strait for the security checkpoint where they want me to drink the water which i forgot was in my steel bottle.  no dice/i say, because i’m now full from my cheese sandwich lunch and just want to get onto the plane and sleep for the 30/40 minutes we’re airborne.  my water ends up poured into someone else’s 1/2 filled plastic bottle previously denied boarding. we finally board near 2:30pm thinking we are seated near the back of the plane again like the incoming flight 10 days ago, only to find out we right up front, and i’ve been bumped into first class seating!  you know the seats we usually pass on the way to ours; almost twice the width of your body, seemingly less worn, room to stretch out your legs and more.  and alas i can’t keep my eyes open long enough to take in all the extra perks like the hi-style magazine in the oversize front pocket… we barely lift off and next thing i know we’re landing in sao paulo.  cristo’s patch of dirt and clouds and adoring picture snappers are hidden behind several mountain views and stretches of tarred roads.  jajube and i enter the belly of the whale called guarulhos international airport where we will continue to navigate our remaining homeward passage from brazil.

we’re singing: goodbye (bl) rues…

tuesday, january 10th, 2011: rain song

day three rises with no sun but everything is glistening.  it’s been lightly raining thru the nite. clothes and shoes which were supposed to dry out on the line and packed today are wetter than before.

our transfer from the big island is boat across the bay then by van to rio’s botofogo district. the original trip from rio to ilha grande on sunday lasted 3 hours, so we anticipated this return trek would be comparable.  but the journey from ilha grande’s dock in the village of abraao to the front gate of our one last niter in rio was nearly five hours… rewind, as once more i am ahead of myself.

as we said so long to ilha grande glistening in the weeping sounds of rain on sand, rain on trees, rain on our heads and rain on the sea, i am again confronted with ancestral voices.  today they are neither tortured or sad. instead they seem to hum a slow, slightly wistful tune, with only a hint of melancholy shining thru their tears of raining ever so gently and consistently on our heads.

bye bye boat ride

today’s boat ride bears no up & down motion, given the ancestors are calmed by their own tears…. and i wonder about floods and hurricanes and all that we experience as disaster by water.  probably just the ongoing conversations ignored or massively muddled: where we the ones still of the flesh just aren’t paying attention, and the listening and answering goes awry. kinda like my inner ear and eyes and stomach arguing up to motion sickness.

the boat is taking its time to cross the watery divide separating rio and ilha grande, tho not traveling slow per se. we pass the ‘hms espanola’, another cruise ship, as it seems a new one docks near abraoo each day in readiness… and i muse on the fact that being schooled in the caribbean in the 60’s to early 70’s, my first association with that moniker is spanish galleons & explorers like columbus and his peers (read both as pirates); all of which predate any classroom lessons about african ancestors and certainly anything official about obeah. my eyes don’t linger on that water house, and this fleeting thought on history lessons harbour no resentment.

see, today’s rain songs are soothing me too… heavy, gentle drops land near my legs and feet as i am comfortably laid back near the bow of the boat watching rio approaching. a mix of rain and blowing mist from the waves mingle just enough to drench our feet or other limbs dangling in the safety of the boat. the rain songs continue all the way til we dock on rio’s side, then abruptly stop. they’re a tribute and a fitting farewell to ilha grande and the ancestral spirits guarding its precious fauna and flora.

bouganvilla farewell

we wait under the dry, grey skies for our land transport, which arrives with a whole new set of island hoppers ready to commune with ilha grande’s old world spirits.  and on cue the rain starts up again as we settle in the vacated seats… welcome/goodbye? both? our van/cab speeds away from the jetty, only to meet a downpour a mile away which disappears in five minutes and returns in another five! the toggle of rain songs continue the whole ride; while i softly sing inside.

Meet the “Elder”

Theatre is a live art form. Rehearsals are for preparation but there is much that can happen between script and curtain call to throw a production off course. The best productions are those that steer even in icy, slippery conditions. As of Saturday January 28th, the Obeah Opera production is engaging Canada’s first ever crowned calypso queen, Macomere Fifi, in the role of elder.
Macomere Fifi joins the cast of 14 other marvellous singers/performers replacing Ella Andall who, due to circumstances beyond our co-producing capacity, cannot join the production as planned. Macomere Fifi aka Eulith Tara Woods… Elder 

As the first ever crowned calypso queen in Canada, Eulith Tara Woods who goes by the sobriquet

 ‘Macomere Fifi ‘ is perhaps the most decorated calypsonian in Canada. She has won the Canadian calypso monarch title on numerous occasions since 1998, in addition to competitions in Ottawa and Miami, and the first Canadian Soca Monarch and Pan Kaiso competition.  An accomplished folk singer, she is a long standing member of the La Petite Musicale Toronto choir where she has been a staple fixture in its annual musical and theatrical presentations. Fifi has represented Canada at cultural exchanges in Hong Kong and Chicago, and was part of the Caribana contingent  from Ontario at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.   Her musical accomplishment is the subject of a documentary episode on Bravo TV’s ‘Heart Beat Series’; and when not on stage, this Canadian Queen of Calypso works arduously behind the scenes promoting the art form as a board member of the Organization of Calypso Performing Artists (OCPA). This is Fifi’s performance debut with b current and Theatre Archipelago. Watch this short documentary on this fabulous woman-                                                                                    http://vimeo.com/9867073

“The chorus is the lead”

In preparing the 10 member, all female chorus for their first rehearsal, Obeah Opera creator, Nicole Brooks begins the evening with an establishment of purpose. “The chorus is the lead.” she tells them. “Their responsibility is weighted they are Tituba’s chains and breakers of those chains. The chorus has the hardest job in the production. They are pace, they are ambiance, they  are keys unlocking doorways, they are the orchestra, the extra notes; without them, Obeah Opera is a story, with them, it is a theatrical masterpiece.

But before all that brilliance there is the awkward moment of being the observer in the rehearsal. It’s quite similar to standing in the grocery line and the person in front of you purchases toilet paper, laundry detergent and a single tomato. Your eyes are glued on the tomato, transfixed even, he doesn’t even put the tomato in a plastic bag just grabs it as if to indicate that of all the items purchased, the 79 cents tomato is the most important. Seated at the back of the room in that rehearsal, I felt like the tomato.  When Nicole issued her call to purpose it was like seeing dragonflies in the jungle. So I perked up, swallowed my A.D.D and paid attention, my eyes trailing every facial expression, every moment, trying to see the thoughts ruminating as they listened, then sang, then listened again. 

They are falling short of their purpose. Nicole stops them. ” I’m hearing the words but not the story, she is praying to Yemenja, asking for protection as she journey’s across the water. The audience needs to feel that, they need to feel your voice.”  Yemanja is an Orisha, a deity, a God whichever term you understand. She is the mother, the protector and in nature she is the water around us. To take it  a step further she is within us, we are 70% water, without water we die, without Yemenja we are in both physical and spiritual danger. This song, the call to Yemenja must be powerful and when the musical director, Tova Kardonne gives the queue, Nicole lays her right hand upon her heart, Lisa Michelle closes her eyes, song rushes from the diaphragms of once weakened voices out into the small studio at Wychwood Barns, through the doors and out! A cacophony of sound, of worship, of cries for help has been sent through the city, out to the water and up to Yemenja.

They sing.

“Where is she gone?”

“Where are they gone?”

Imagine that the belly of the ship was the Cathedral, or the river, or the corner of your bedroom floor that you kneel to pray. Imagine, that the source of your protection was now their weapon of choice. In the land of spirituality there will always be the presence of good and evil, a miscarriage of justice. A vessel journeying on water, it could swallow the bones of the ship, make mulch of its inhabitants, instead they are carried safely across. Obeah Opera has begun.

I don’t know where I will arrive on the other side of this journey. I don’t know which Orisha will walk with me but I am certain that question will be answered when I arrive safely at the end. Here’s to being the tomato in the room… not a bad deal.

january 9th: it’s all about the songs

day two and counting – mind you, it’s day 8 on the trip to the land of opposing attractions, paradoxes, dichotomous parallels and the like, aka brazil. and the white sands of lopes mendes beach awaits ye who be a curious visitor to ilha grande. it’s either an early morning boat ride or 3 hours of hiking up and down one of the island’s popular mountain trails.

well waking up and breakfast and getting ready for the day eats away at the morning hours, and the last boat to the beach left at 12:30pm so hike it is! jajube and i walk thru the village streets which seem virtually deserted with most of the shops and restaurants and bars closed, as the transient or tourist population have all scuttled off in boatloads to one or several of the various natural attractions for sun and sand or deep sea fun.  many will spend most of the day in the boats doing a half way round the island or full island tour until late in the afternoon when everyone returns – provided that you don’t miss the last boat at 5pm or catch a boat taxi and is sped ‘home’ at a hefty cost.

with main street, rua getulio vargas and the others, pretty much deserted except for stragglers like me and jajube and the workers preparing for the evening of the inevitable and keenly anticipated nite traffic, we make our way along the waterfront of abraao, head up the beginning trail of the mountainside hardly breaking a sweat even in the near 30 degree weather. the trail like most of the island is unspoilt terrain, partly due to most of ilha’s status as a national park (give thanx for this). towering jackfruit trees laden with maturing fruit, many of which have fallen and become food for the littlest of the mountain’s inhabitants (insects/bugs) line the abraoo to mendes (a continuous up & downhill) trail, while cocoa trees waiting to flower, and teeny young guavas peer at us as we trek farther in/up the tame jungle track.

like my grannie up the hill

in the thicket, dense networks of unfamiliar vines struggle to keep pace with the huge trees waving heads at the sun, while lowly ferns and a few deciduous bush smile green and lush or spring tiny yellow and purple flowers reminding us that everything in here is alive, well ordered, and obviously quite content. even the sheets of moss covering huge boulders smack dab in the middle of the trail so we have to climb over or step around them, or the massive rocks lining crisscrossing streams gurgling cool come splash me songs… and these were the third or even fourth time obeah opera sang out to me in the hills of ilha grande.

the first time was undoubtedly in the tweets and hawks of a surprisingly small smattering of birds loudly marking territory. for a while i answered or at best tried to mimic their calls, but they managed to blow me off pretty quickly: ‘foreigner’.  the second set of songs was the undecipherable and almost non-stop drone of the little creatures ensuring that everything and everyone keep their distance; or maybe they were just feeling their way thru the density as per usual. then there was the bamboo choirs. i had no inkling that they would be this conspicuous in song when i attempted to cull a walking staff earlier on the trail. i didn’t have a cutlass or machete, ‘a don’t leave home without it’ companion to any competent bush worker or trailblazer; mind you brazil’s parks authorities warn no cutting of vegetation along any of the trails even to make new or clear old paths! and i had sadly forgotten my tiny trusted knife at home in toronto – used mainly for peeling fruit and the like, but may have proved handy here – so it seems i was going to have to settle for finding a trusty staff from the fallen/broken bamboo piles, most of which were rotting or taunting me from the steep precipice on either sides of the trail!

me and the bamboo

before i found a slim green stick dangling by a big thread as if someone had began reaping it for her/himself but got tired of its unrelenting hanging on, i was greeted by the soprano bamboo choral unit: tall, lithe ladies in green simultaneously bending up to and away from the sun; each sweetly belting a different aria so i hear a high-pitched but hushed cacophony and cannot distinguish which song is calling out for me to stop and listen or which is discreetly ushering me to pick up the pace lest we get stuck at lopes mendes after last boat!

the second bamboo choir was an alto mix of firm stout voices which actually greeted us twice: over the hill from pouso to lopes mendes and back again, as all boats arrive and depart at pouso beach where only the local kids and tourists needing to have a beer before the boat, hang out. but let me not start on the boat back to abraao, as we haven’t even gotten to the prize yet.

after 3 hours of hiking with 2 trusted bamboo staffs, and at least a half hour devoted to the many pix we snapped (water, jackfruit  & jackfruit trees, vistas of the bay, little monkeys at play, surrounding hills and other mountains far away, mushrooms of all colours, a caterpillar in red to mauve velvet, the vines, the trees, roots and rock and the natural steps they sprung, huge felled trees or skinny ones insisting on growing in the path of mostly foreign footsteps, and the too many false endings of this well-traveled trail… mind you, this was just us thinking and actually emoting “are we there yet?” vibes), we land on the famed lopes mendes beach.

reams of tiny pristine white granules with a hint of black pepper fully distinguishing the huge stretch of sand from ilha grande’s other beaches laden with larger granules of sand the colour of light brown cane sugar or deep apricot. a few more photos and we quickly shed our outer layers, shoes, and bags, head into the rough rolling waves. it never ceases to amaze me how consistently and constantly turbulent be the atlantic ocean. feels like all the ancestral souls who jumped ship or were flung overboard dead or alive are still calling from the belly of those ships which crossed the middle passage from west africa to the americas 300 hundred years ago and before…  this was the 5^thsong i heard as we climbed down the last leg of the mountain trail approaching the beach: voices masked by the waves of the gone but not forgotten.

are we there yet?

as the cool, nah, cold sea water envelop us from toes to heads; and surly waves crash into our bellies then thru our hair, we release the day. we bounce with the rollicking and foaming sea, and we taste sun and salt and wet and sand in tiny gulps. then it’s 20 minutes later and we muse on the claim to the best beach in the world… arguable.

see, a fine beach is a fine beach, and dominica and grenada’s white sands are this, jamaica’s light and dark sands are as sweet, and even trinidad & tobago’s oil sweetened granules serve up this haute beach cuisine. but yes, none mixes the flagrant recipe of lopes mendes beach’s panoramic vista of sand and sea and 360 degrees of mountains near and far.  it is a sight for sore feet and we must now head to the pouso jetty for one of the intrepid last boat. we gather as much sand as we don’t want to carry home, our bags, and now wet clothes over swim gear.

the 20-30 minute walk back feels more like ten as we literally take flight refreshed and ready to soak up beams from the hovering full moon. the tired in our feet will wait til after dinner to moan. the next song on this day is last boat revving out into the bay toward the village of abraao. and what i imagined as a 15-20 minute ride back stretched into a near full hour of my mind trying to referee a conversation between my inner ear, my eyes, and the pit of my stomach where none is listening to any of the others, so the bogus discussion is totally confusing my body: aka motion sickness.

i hold tight to the (starboard/right side of the boat’s bow bracing my feet on a riser by my seat and closing my eyes ever so often as the waves hoist us in the air & quickly down again. i never experienced motion sickness until my mid-20’s riding in a car along some mountainous roads in jamaica; as a child never understood people getting sick from a drive out… til then. and now, i sometimes have to close my eyes and sing and hold on tight to something hard when venturing by ferry to toronto islands or any such crossing water trips.  this is the reason that the last boat from lopes mendes beach was our only option of returning to abraao (hiking back another 3 more hours maybe/yes) but a speeding boat taxi would have dissolved my lower stomach like honey in hot tea.

as ilha grande’s only built up village comes into view the voices of the gone but not forgotten ancestors adrift with the sea, calm as if they just released us back into ‘everyday life’ where we seldom/consciously think about them. the water is perceptively calmer, i can look around again and enjoy the ever-present panorama of mountains and the several little ilhas dotting the water just east of rio. more than half hour later than anticipated we climb back onto ‘hard land’ where the evening bustle of the most vibrant and laid back tourist trade is at full throttle.  tomorrow it’s rio, here we come again.

song of sunday, january 8th, 2011

today i begin counting up to obeah opera opening…

it is sunday, i am in brazil on a boat with 50 other people heading for ilha grande (big island) about 2 hrs south of rio de janeiro on brazil’s east coast.

and as we slowly approach the northern coast of ilha grande – probably the most popular getaway spot in the world; with a population of 4000 people, reams of hidden/natural gems of well-explored and enjoyed terrain/fauna & flora like lagoon azul or what’s touted as the best beach in the world/lopes mendes’ white sandy stretches, over 130 visitor lodges or pousadas, and as many restaurants, and yes as many visitors on a daily basis – i see that the name of a huge cruise ship docked about 500 metres off the marina of abraao (the main village on big island) is named mcs opera.  it’s a ship apparently from panama in central america, which has obviously stopped here just to keep me in check.  as my trip to ilha grande is part of a larger plan to let go and allow the obeah and the new and the old of this story in which i’m about to be plunged headlong when i return home can sing into now!

the mcs opera is literally a lateral skyscraper on the water; easily 40 storey or 4-5 low rise apartment buildings stacked side by side. and while jajube (my daughter, travel companion, and assistant director on obeah opera) and i marvel at how far away from land the ship is docked so that the travelers must cross more water in order to get onto big island… a ferry with sixty or so neat rows of seats and waving tourists from as far away as our toronto home slowly rolls by our old style boat with only 20 official seats and the watery breeze whipping us into a desired and welcome delirium.  just thinking about the potential peace of ilha grande may be enough to bring on the spirit of the profane and the sanctified which is embodied in the music of obeah opera.  and brazil was of course the perfect place to reveal this/now!

brazil being a nation, a terrain, a people, a world of dichotomies on top of dichotomies: old & new world, mountains and valleys, hills and gullies galore, jungle and city in throwing distance, the whole black/white or dark/light thing which typifies class, status, and modern-day commerce; pagan and religious rituals shacked up in the same house or town or ‘barrao’, favellas (ghettos) and suburbs sharing the same neighbourhood, cathedrals and storefront churches, and as many man-made monuments (like the towering & breath-taking cristo do redentor 2400 ft above sea level & into the clouds of corcovado mountain), as there are graffiti tags etched on city and rural buildings.

four days ago we walked into the sao sebastio cathedral with its resplendent high ceiling and countless stained glass windows, a lavish manger scene still up on january 4^th,

xmas carols low in the background.  this truly awesome building of mayan temple cum pyramid crushed into new style steeple design and straddling the so-called bohemian district of lapa and downtown or centro rio enveloped me in the soul and feel of the beginning journey of obeah opera as i walk in thru the front doorway.  spirit beckoning ancestry and obeah and giving over…

and it’s a local village igrejawhich today again fully wraps me in the spirit of obeah opera, when an older pastor and his young protégé welcomed jajube and i into this church we just happened on as we sauntered thru a (non-tourist) neighbourhood on big island.  we’d been discussing and pontificating and marveling at different times on several ideas and people phenomena during this first trip here to rio de janeiro… one topic being about letting go of the everyday.

inside catedral de sao sebastiao

we had returned to the discussion around whether some folks from ilha grande never leave the island – like some who get arrested by life in many north american ghettos – when we stumbled upon the grace do sehnor (ministario do proveto) church and decided to go see it up close and delightedly entered as invited then sat waiting for the 7pm service which began promptly at approximately 7:23pm. soon after sitting we were joined by one of the youngest worshiper – at no more than 3 years old, this son of the pastor’s protégé had the ritual of wiping his feet down pat (on the mat at the church’s side door), even tho he obviously didn’t know exactly why this was a necessary ritual, as he later sat smack dab in the middle of the mat to be close to the entrance while playing with his toy cars!

at first only several older and tiny-framed women entered the church; each knelt facing their seat while praying in the pews before settling down; all of this only after they had each come to welcome me and jajube to the evening’s congregation. then by 7:15, when we wondered out loud/hushed about coloured people’s time, younger celebrants entered with the same ritual of prayer and welcome. we later intuited this as regular seating: the church officials/pastor and others sat on the stage/pulpit, the older women in the front pews to the right of the house facing left as maybe the official women’s choir, many of the young people/male & female occupied about 3 rows of front-facing pews in the left of the house just beside the youth band ‘rosa o shamon’, and the other youth, male and adult female congregants were scattered in the remaining pews surrounding jajube and i; which made it hard for us to sneak away about 45 minutes into the service.

but not before realizing how the music and the rituals of church brought to these faithful the release and ‘letting go’ which we all desire and seek at some point.  many among us find it in booze and drugs, others in meditation, still others in wild partying, while the proveto faithful sang their way into flight.  by the time me and jajube were ready to depart – i was famished and quite tired from the day’s journeying – just after a group of men/including the pastor sang accompanied by 2 of the young musicians, half the congregation had ‘caught the spirit’!

with the heavy soundtrack of foot stomping, much ad libbing, heavy on the hallelujahs, almost everyone’s breathing had changed perceptibly… this was not the best time to leave, so we stayed for another round of singing and prayer read before slipping out the side door; but not without a genuine farewell-wishing from the pastor’s protégé, who had just once again landed on solid ground from the height of an obvious profound flight.

and we were headed back down to the track of beach roads which typified the transient neighbourhood of hotels by the sands, pousadas every which/where, hostels up the hill, tents on legal camp yards, and shops and eateries by the score…

our dinner at the beirgarten restaurant goes down well with rain pounding off the roof of our street-side patio seats. we sit for a long time even after finishing, as we watch the street envelop in a blessed flood thru which many of the church-goers we sat amongst earlier are wading their home, umbrellas in tow. this song of sunday is beckoning the next day and i am reminded that at the core of obeah opera is the music now conjured and inspired today by those women who ‘let go’ over four centuries now.  women who accepted the ‘darkened’ label of being witches in 17^th century salem and were consequently release from their fated demise. the journey continues… meet me here again soon soon

Obeah: Fragmented and Colonised

Horns, feet and tyres screeching; the voices of disgruntled drivers compete the opening montage of the evening news these are the sounds of the city. I have spent hours in this moment, slouched in the passenger’s seat searching for distraction from my mother’s evening routine.Today it’s found in the scene of a grey car flanked by white Dacron and cotton fabric inked with the words “Potions and Elixirs”. Some vials of translucent liquids, each in a faint, meaningless colour; seemingly for identity purposes. The labels read ‘oil find good man ’, ‘oil a find a job’, ‘oil prosperity’. A young lady stops, asks a few questions existing amidst her echo of strong laughter. We have slowly been moving along our series of hard-fought two inches, my neck transfixed on the slender man in a Yankees baseball cap, perched on the hood of a car selling antidotes for life’s misfortunes.

That image was vividly imprinted on my memory banks as my mother drove me home from school that evening was in mild contrast to the fearful and brief mention of Obeah in history class that week. There were enough pieces of the puzzle present for me to draw the conclusion that this was an Obeah practitioner. I was disappointed at the lack of a robe; the absence of a well-fed stomach, his youth and the car shattered what remained. The moment resonated because the fear my teacher spoke never entered the scene not for me or the brisk moving passersby. What is so ‘evil’ about Obeah?

The Obeah we know is a fragmented Yoruba religion brought from Africa with its stolen practitioners and believers. A West African belief system rooted in spirituality with both and understanding of and respect for the gifts of the earth. Rituals and herbs melded, conjured and transformed in a healing art. Like all religions it is a source of solace, strength and salvation. How did that become branded as evil?

The fragmented Obeah that I met at 4:30 in the evening on a Kingston, Jamaica road is the contemporary offspring of a colonised religion. To own a man you must break his strength, it more often than not is found in his faith. What better way to break the Africans than to sully their spirituality. Thus today’s definition of Obeah more often than not uses words like sorcery, witchcraft, manipulation and evil. Further to this, Obeah was and in many respects still remains an oral tradition there is no ‘good book’ to reference; it is openly corruptible by those who wield the power. The puritan colonisers held the power and Christianity was their method of manipulation. Our Christianity is good, your… spirituality is evil.

Those who sought to practice their African religion began to do so in secrecy aiding the warped misinterpretation of this healing art. Since its western discovery, Obeah has found itself existing in opposition to the acceptable good in a New World.

I can’t say for certain that the man in the Yankees cap was a healing art practitioner but I also can’t say for certain that he is not. He is offering something we as humans have come to need antidotes for our misfortunes. For some of us, those misfortunes are inaccurately tied to the fortunes of others we wish evil upon them in order to receive good for ourselves. The promotion at work you so desperately want will only come through the promotion or expulsion of the one who stands in your way; we ask for the latter before the former.

Obeah got lost in this web, when Christianity failed, the broken and faithless turned to the other the opposite of the Puritan colonisers religion. Thus begins the shadowing of healing art with sorcery and witchcraft misconstrued remnants, pieces, colonised fragments of spiritualised art that both heals and protects a people.  Religion vs. Religion, Culture vs Culture, Different vs.Different – pointless and purposeless ramblings that we have come to know as world history.

Obeah Opera will demystify Obeah’s place as ‘other’, reclaiming and reconnecting the fragments of this misunderstood healing art. Obeah Opera is the antidote for the misconception.