Ogun & The People

Ogun & the People Returns

The Afro-Cuban pataki (sacred parable) Ogun & the People describes catastrophe and a series of efforts to rebalance the world. It couldn’t be more relevant.

Last year, Kulu Mele celebrated its 50th anniversary, premiering Ogun & the People. To develop this work, Kulu Mele traveled to Santiago de Cuba to study with world-renowned Ballet Folklorico Cutumba. Kulu Mele travelers immersed in dance, music, and spiritual, historical and cultural traditions informing the source story: an Afro-Cuban pataki about surviving catastrophe. The prescient dance-drama showed how people gather powers and forces to make change. And much more.

A book came out of the project, Kulu Mele’s Ogun & the People: Celebrating 50 Years,* shares important Philadelphia African American culture and history and offers testimonies to Kulu Mele’s transformative practice. In July and August, Kulu Mele is giving away three chapters and asking for your responses and reflections.

Read Ogun & the People this summer. And tell us what you think:

“Carrying the torch for culture,” stories from 50 years of Philadelphia Black cultural and movement life, as told by John and Dorothy Wilkie.
“Ogun is the guardian of truth,” reflections about Orisha culture and wisdom, told by Ronald Facundo Harris.
“Feeling is connected to spirit: reflections on Kulu Mele, African-centered cultural pedagogies, folk arts and social change, and Ogun & the People,” by Ira Bond, M. Ed. With community call and response.

Traditionally, Afro-Cuban pataki help people puzzle out morals and messages and move through impasses: vernacular humanities practices. We amplify this tradition, taking it seriously as learning tool. Kulu Mele’s work in Philadelphia over 50+ years, and especially with O&tP, represents a kind of text that we are opening further to public view and use. You can also watch videos of the project. Explore resources. Visit the store for publications.* We aim to move forward together, carrying the torch for culture. Share your reflections.

Subscribe to Kulu Mele’s newsletter to stay involved [use the form at the bottom of the website].

*(A limited number of copies of the printed book, in its entirety, is available in Kulu Mele’s store).

The Ogun & the People Project is supported, in part, by the Pennsylvania Humanities Council, the Federal-State Partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities.