Middle Passage/Yonvalou is a work about transformation, birth, and creation. In the short work you see the body slowly tumble, roll, and bellow, evoking the image of a vulnerable baby in the womb, a body on the floor of a large vessel, or the waves of an wading body of water. The nude body, initially restrained in its posture, travels in a state of uncertainty and introversion towards a sense of physical deliverance. The work’s point of departure is the middle passage journey that enslaved Africans endured to the new shores of the Americas during the Atlantic Slave Trade. Yonvalou, is a Haitian Vodou rhythm and dance. The rhythm is played for the appeasement of many of the older Rada house spirits rooted in the ancient Dahomean Kingdom of West Africa. It is one of supplication; a constantly undulating spine, characterizes the dance itself with the body in a low, kneeling position, close to the ground. The Yonvalou is best exemplified by the Lwa (spirit) Damballah Wedo, the serpent God said to be the creator, with his counterpart Aida Wedo, of the Heaven and Earth. Their presence in a ceremony and in the pantheon confirms the existence of life.
