Orisun Omi means "the source of water" in Yoruba, and it was taken as the title of this film because no matter how things may change, "the well remains the same." Beautiful dancers will always be beautiful dancers, and there are many beautiful dancers in Orisun Omi, hard at work in a luminous tropical springtime.Beautiful Bahia has been called the Africa of the Americas, and the African cultures brought there by the slave trade remain a dominant influence today. When in 1978 Arthur Hall and three members of Ile Ife in Philadelphia traveled to Bahia, they found that between the English speaking North Americans and the Portuguese speaking South Americans, the common language was Yoruba.
Orisun Omi explores the cultures common to both Bahia and Philadelphia. Dances include a strong men's company burning up the Ghanaian Harvest, a strong women's company burning up Celebration, and Dance Conga, Mascaron, and Yanvallu. Arthur Hall as Obatala presides over the whole.
Orisun Omi
(The Well)
Ile Ife Film of Bayne Wms Film MICA
1982, 29 minutes
16mm original, color and B&W
Available on videotape
VHS copy for private library use ~ $48.00
Maine residents please add 6% sales tax
To order please
contact
The Arthur Hall Collection
754 Mount Ephraim Road
Searsport, Maine 04974
207-548-2445
jw157@columbia.edu
Arthur Hall, choreography
Bruce Williams, filmmaker
Farel Johnson [Hafiz Shabazz], music director
Tamba, Washington, musicians
Reginaldo Daniel Flores, songs of the Orishas
Ron Payton, dancer
with members of state ballet,
the federal university
and the community of Salvador da Bahia, Brazil
with the support of
Philadelphia Bahia Club of the Partners of the Americas,
Valley Filmworks,
Coca-Cola Company e Refrigerantes da Bahia S.A.,
Maine Arts Commission,
Universidade Federal da Bahia,
US Information Service,
Associacao Cultural Brasil-Estados Unidos,
Hotel Casa Grande,
Hans DuPluy,
Clyde Morgan da UFBA,
Monika Solkosky,
Teatro Castro Alves
"Awo, awo, awo," the film says, meaning many things are hidden. What is revealed contains further mysteries. Orisun Omi travels to the well for those with eyes to see.
Orisun Omi was first shown at the
Philadelphia Museum of Art during the exhibition Treasures of Ancient Nigeria. It has been screened at Ile Ife in Philadelphia and in Nigeria. (About the controversy over the film in Nigeria, see
Shango). The film was last seen officially in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts during the city's tribute to Arthur Hall in 1993.
"Officially" because someone in Philadelphia has Arthur's 16mm print of Orisun Omi, which disappeared when the Ile Ife Center closed in 1989 (see "Oba Koso and the end of Ile Ife." Orisun Omi was last screened April 14, 1996 at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine (see press release).
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