Calling The Goddess of Water

A drummer shakes a calabash with snake vertebrae to the four corners, calling various spirits. Then the ceremony summons Simbi Dlo.

The Afoutayi Dance Company performed a ceremonial Haitain dance Thursday, surrounded by the 100 works depicting the seductive water deity "Mami Wata"—or Mother Water, featured in an art exhibit at Stanford's Cantor Arts Center. 

"Mami Wata, Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and Its Diasporas" is open until Jan. 2 and explores 500 years of visual cultures and histories of Mami Wata. On display are a diverse array of traditional and contemporary arts— sculpture, paintings, masks, altars, and more from west and central Africa, the Caribbean, Brazil and the United States. As guest curator Henry Drewal said, the exhibit "celebrates the sacredness of water."

Djenane Saint Juste, the artistic director of the Afoutayi Dance Company, introduced the audience to Simbi Dlo, the Goddess of Water. She explained that though we in California can take water for granted, in places like Haiti and Africa water is greatly treasured. "In drought-ridden Haiti, girls walk kilometers in the mountains just to bring water back to the home," she said. "So water is about generosity: when we share it with you, it is love. Water is community."

Through traditional poly-rhythmic drumming, call-and-response singing, and ceremonial ritual dance, Simbi Dlo, the Goddess of Water, is honored in the hope that she will bring water to the community. This Haitian Vodou ceremony, Simbi Dlo, has been danced and sung down the generations. The dancers pray to Simbi Dlo, deity of sweet, fresh water.

Please, please mother of love, protect us,
bring water to us and grace us with your presence.

The Simbi originated in Kongo cosmology, and they are mercurial and unpredictable. They stand outside until attracted by their favorite rhythms, symbols, or objects. Every aspect of the dance is designed to please them.

The dancers wear white for purity and blue to evoke water. Their skirts display Simbi Dlo's magical vèvè symbol. While dancing, they draw the vèvè in corn meal on the ground. Their jugs are both symbolic and real receptacles. The rhythms are especially pleasing to Simbi Dlo, as are the inspirational words that are shouted.

Djenane's mother, Florencia "Fofo" Pierre is a Mambo (priestess in the Vodou religion) and also a dancer. She joined Saint Juste in teaching the audience to chant and dance the prayer in Kreyol (Haitian Creole) to Simbi Dlo.

Although the Afoutayi Dance Company is only one year old they are no strangers to the Cantor Arts Center.  on October 13 for the opening the new photographic exhibit, "Vodoun/Voudounon: Portraits of Initiates."

Their next performance will be "Bound Together" with the Alayo Dance Company in San Francisco, Dec. 3 – 5. In "Ayiti Pap Mouri" (Haiti will not die), Saint Juste weaves the political, social, historical and cultural aspects of Haiti into the story of a young woman. "Ayiti," was tragically hurt by three jealous women: "Colonization," "Politics" and "Catastrophe." Triumphantly, in the end she finds "los guedes" where she dies and is reborn as a stronger woman.