Reel 2 Real - Video

Ejengi

The video clip below shows Louis Sarno talking about Ejengi spirit dances, and is part of a series of video interviews with Louis that were recorded in April 2012.

Ejengi is a Bayaka male initiation dance, spirit and ceremony. The ejengi spirit is entirely clothed in sweeping palm fronds and assumes mesmerising swirling and cascading dance forms.

Louis Sarno has recorded many hours of ejengi ceremonies in the Central African Republic. All of the examples in this set come from a single recording made at an ejengi ceremony in Yandoumbé on the 4th December 1992. Ejengi ceremonies can last for days, weeks, or even months, and progress through multiple stages. Included in these recordings are examples of ejengi declaiming, songs while ejengi is in his lair, and the sounds of leaves popping through the forest as ejengi communicates. The associated images are all taken from another ejengi ceremony at Mongengé village in the Central African Republic in 1987.

Resources

Sound Galleries

Musical torchlit trails at the Pitt Rivers Museum

On Friday November 23rd 2012, the galleries of the Pitt Rivers Museum were plunged into evening darkness and bathed in Bayaka music and sound from the Central African Republic. Visitors were given torches to explore the galleries that were transformed into a rich forest soundscape with sung fables, snatches of laughter, beautiful variations on harps and flutes, and the stunning polyphonic singing of Bayaka women. Hidden surprises included mini projections from the rainforests and a visualiser designed by Nathaniel Mann, the PRM's Embedded Composer in Residence. The evening was filmed By Mike Day of Intrepid Cinema as part of the Reel to Real project, and complemented the Oxford City-wide Christmas Light Night organised by Oxford Inspires. A four hour playlist of Bayaka music from the PRM's sound collections, originally recorded by Louis Sarno, was curated on the evening by Nathaniel Mann and Dr Noel Lobley. The event was streamed online, and was watched live in the Central African Republic by Louis Sarno and some of the Bayaka community.