N/um

The healing dance is the principal ritual of voodoo. The ceremony is aimed toward giving spiritual and physical health to suffering people. Illness is seen as the evil influence of spirits of death. While the dance progresses, it becomes more and more intense until the healer-dancers go into a state of deep concentration and then they are able to cure people. The dancer has an object, the "n/um" in its stomach. This "n/um" travels across the spine until it reaches the skull. There it stops and explodes in the brain. This explosion is the sign of a rebirth and the reason why the skull is the symbol of a new life oriented toward the right way according to the good spirits of the ancestors.

  • The works are different stages of the dance.
  • N/um is symbolized by the flowers.

  • The sketched out skeletons are the areas it travels. 

  • N/um translates to medicine or supernatural potent energy.