In this class, participants will engage with Bisola Bello’s teaching method Root-Meter. We will use an improvisational approach with elements of somatic practices to guide us through the engagement process of West African movement forms. Focusing on the pelvis and spine to explore meters, using breath to flow and explore qualities of vibration and undulation through space and Cuban Afro music to stimulate polyrhythms. All are welcome.
In the practice of Root-Meter, we tap into the 7 chakras whose modes correspond to the directives of the Orisha; these assist us in the spiritual awaking of mind and body that is developed in West African Yoruba movement.
Bisola Bello is a Nigerian dance artist currently based in the UK. She is a movement practitioner, teacher, and performer, who gained her BA in contemporary dance at Northampton University, MA in Movement directing and teaching at the Royal Central School of speech and PGCE in Drama with sharing excellence partnership Dunraven school (Roehampton university). She is trained in contemporary (release, flying low), Jazz, musical theatre, physical theatre, modern Horton, Afro Cuban, Brazilian, Bata and Acogny West African dance techniques. Bisola has worked with artists and companies such as Union dance, Eliot Smith dance, Anton Mirto, Paul Morris, Utopia Theatre, Kansaze Dance Company, Pascal Merighi & Sebastien Ramirez, Elcid Asaei, This is it theatre and others. She was also part of the Independent Dance Intergenerational reciprocal mentoring scheme, mentored by Funmi Adewale, which supported her to formulate her movement language.
Bisola formed Root Meter the dance/movement approach based on 10 years’ experience in improvisation, contemporary and West African dance. Bisola’s teaching method comes from the elements of Yoruba dance from Nigeria, Cuba, and Brazil, exerting qualities of vibration, undulation, contraction, and flow. Root meter is rooted in the somatic nature and the spiritual essences of the Yoruba dance practice.
My mission is to share Root Meter, to make Yoruba tradition accessible to all people; movers, dancers/non dancers and those who are interested in learning different culture forms. All are welcome.
‘Yoruba is an ethnic group from West African mainly in Yorubaland in Nigeria, Beinni and Togo and the diaspora in Cuba, Brazil and other parts in the south and north America as well as the UK. As part of the Yoruba culture, the Yoruba religion IFA is a system of divination it is a traditional religious and spiritual concept and practice of the Yoruba people. Along with the concept of Orisha. The Orishas are deities sent by Oludumare (God) to assist in the spiritual evolution of humankind.
Yoruba is a divine journey to the inner self, God ‘Universe’- consciousness. Yoruba is spirituality.’