Calling to the Heavens
A Tribute to the Late Lukumí
Apuón
Olympia Alfaro, Omí Sanyá
Figure 1. Photo of Olympia taken by Miami Herald photographer
Carl Juste for the exhibit "At the Crossroads: Afro-Cuban Orisha Arts in
Miami."
On the 18th of
January of the current year, ikú robbed the Lukumí Orisha community of
the most opulent and melodious apuón the United States has known,
Olympia Alfaro, Omí Sanyá.
Though not the first Lukumí apuón in the U.S., she was possibly
one of the greatest influences on the development of this role in this
country. Many of the early apuóns,
myself included, cannot deny that Omí Sanyá occupies a place in their
Orisha repertories.
Omí Sanyá was born on the November 10, 1927, in the Buena Vista
section of Marianao, a suburb of Havana.
As a child, she was constantly surrounded by music, and especially by
the Afro-Cuban traditions of which she would eventually become a part. In her own words:
“Buena
Vista estaba llena de santero. Tambor
toda la semana. Bembé. Bembé.—Buena Vista was full of santeros. A drum [played] every day of the week. Bembé. Bembé.”
Though her mother was not a
fervent adherent, Omí Sanyá’s family was no stranger to the Bantú and
Lukumí religions. Her aunt, Prudencia
Alfaro, was a very well known priestess of Yemojá ordained in the nineteenth
century. According to Omí Sanyá,
she was the ojigbona for one of the most famous Oriatés from the
early twentieth century, José Roché, Oshún Kayodé, who was ordained in
1896 by Tranquilina Balmaseda, Omí Yalé.
Nonetheless, her parents were
not active in the religions and Omí Sanyá was the first one to undergo
ordination in the Lukumí religion on the 25th of July of 1968. She was ordained to Yemojá in Havana
by Carlos García, Omí Saidé, an om’orisha of Rigoberto “el de
Madruga” Rodriguez, Oshún Yemí.[1] In the future, her brother followed
suit—“Oshún gave him no choice,” according to Omí Sanyá— and in Miami,
in the late 1970s, she ordained her sister, the famous Cuban contralto Xiomara
Alfaro, to Oshún.
Fig. 2: José
Roché, Oshún Kayodé.
Fig. 3: Rigoberto “el de Madruga” Rodriguez, Oshún Yemí.
Omí Sanyá arrived to the U.S. in 1969 and a few days later, she
went to her first wemilere outside of Cuba, in the home of the late Juan
Candela, a well known Oní Shangó from Matanzas who had been living in
New York since the early 1960s. Though
she was a young priestess, many Olorishas knew Omí Sanyá from wemileres
she had attended as an apprentice under one of Cuba’s most remembered apuóns,
Oní Yemojá José Antonio Zubiadur, Tinibú. Though he was not of Lukumí
descent—his mother was an Arará priestess of Hebiosso—Tinibú
was adopted by the Lukumí at a very young age.
Omí Sanyá had many other mentors; renowned apuóns that
included the famous Minino, and Luis “Magín” Santamaría, Ol’Oshúndé. Still Tinibú was Omí Sanyá’s
principal mentor. Omí Sanyá,
Pedrito Saavedra, Agongolojú, and Amelia Pedrozo, Olomidé—all
departed glories of Lukumí chanting—followed Tinibú to every wemilere
he sang in Havana for years. They
were his apprentices, and personal chorus.
Every so often, Tinibú would permit them an opportunity,
something Omí Sanyá (and any trainee for that matter) valued very much
as in that era, when there were still direct descendants of the Lukumí in Cuba,
you could not be an improvisado in any Lukumí field as is so often the
case today! One had to be duly
recognized by the community as a trainee and gain the status of apuón,
and this could only be done after a long period of training which always meant
accompanying one’s mentor everywhere.
Secondly, if the trainee performed at any time during the
apprenticeship, it had to be done in the presence of the teacher. Never would any trainee perform in the
mentor’s absence unless specifically authorized to do so by the mentor. If so, it was considered disrespectful and
downright betrayal.
Fig. 4: José
Antonio Zubiadur, Tinibú
Besides being one
of the most melodic and respected apuóns on the island, Tinibú
was also cherished for the beautiful manifestation of Yemojá that
“danced his head”—as possession is often described. According to those who were fortunate enough to see him in
possession—he was the ojigbona for my grandmother Marta Nebot, Oshún
Ilarí, whom I heard reminisce countless times about Tinibú’s Yemojá—Tinibú
was graced by his orisha. Due to
an accident he had as a young man, Tinibú had with a very bad limp and
depended on a cane to walk. This sad
fact earned him the nickname el cojo—the limping one. But Yemojá was another story. As soon as Yemojá began taking over Tinibú’s
body, the cane flew into the air, against the wall or the crowd. Yemojá had no use for that cane. She walked, jumped, and according to most
opinions, danced the most marvelous agolona Olorishas have ever
seen.[2] As soon as Yemojá departed, Tinibú
screamed out for his cane: “mi bastón!”
Fig. 5: Pedro
Saavedra, Agongolojú.
Fig. 6: Amelia
Pedrozo, Olomidé.
Once in New York, Omí Sanyá
gained widespread popularity in a very short period of time. By her second day in the city, she was
already performing at a wemilere for Oshún in the Bronx where she
came across many Olorishas who knew her from the island and could attest
to her status because they had seen her perform with Tinibú. At the time of her arrival, Añá and
consecrated batá drums were still unknown in the U.S. Most wemileres with batá drums
relied on aberikunlá—unconsecrated batá drums that lacked the
ritual preparations that energize the drums with Añá, orisha of drums
and music. Agbé—the shekeré
ensemble, was the other alternative. Omí
Sanyá sang with both. In 1975, the
first set of consecrated batá with the ashé of Añá was
born in the U.S. when Babalawo Pipo Peña, Ogbeyonu, consecrated
the first tambor de fundamento in the U.S. By this time, Omí Sanyá had also become the country’s most
prominent apuón.
In the late 1960s, Ogbeyonu
left Cuba with his family and relocated in New Orleans. Peña soon began traveling to Miami to work
for Olorishas who requested his religious services. Ogbeyonu, like Añabí and Atandá—the Cuban progenitors
of Añá and batá drums on
the island—the century before, was disappointed to learn that the only drums
available in the United States were aberikunlá and not the orthodox batá
drums so necessary in the light of the growing community of Olorishas. Ogbeyonu, today residing in Miami,
was the grandson of the late Arturo Peña, Otúrupón Bara’ifé, a
well-known Cuban Babalawo.
Arturo had consecrated a set of
drums in Cuba for Jesus Pérez several years before, and Ogbeyonu had
been present throughout the ceremony.
Although not a drummer by trade, Ogbeyonu was well versed in the
rituals necessary for the consecration of Añá. Still, he sent to Cuba for the proper documentation to verify the
rituals that he needed to carry out just in case his memory failed him. He also requested the measurements and
details for the construction of the drums.
On February 13, 1975, in Miami, Ogbeyonu, along with 16 Babalawos
and various Olorishas, consecrated the first ritual set of batá
in the U. S. The drums were named Okilapá,
like the late drummer Pablo Roche.
The first drummers consecrated as omó Añá in the U. S. were Ogbeyonu
and his two sons, Arturo and Reynaldo, and New York based drummer and Babalawo
Julito Collazo.
The news that Añá had
been born in the U.S. spread like brushfire.
After complying with the religious obligations of playing to Egún
and to Oshún, his tutelary deity and that of his wife, the drum’s iyalorisha,
Ogbeyonu began to receive requests from Olorishas anxious to
comply with their ritual presentations before the drums which had not been
performed because Añá did not exist.
He played twice in Miami, again for Oshún, and then for Obatalá
for a fellow Babalawo, Ignacio Ferrer.
Soon after, Peña went to New York City to play with Añá for the
first time in the Big Apple. This event
took place in the home of Olympia Alfaro, Omí Sanyá, priestess of Yemojá,
who by this time had become the group’s apuón and traveled with Ogbeyonu
and Okilapá when their services were requested. They were also the first fundamento
to play in California, in the home of Babalorisha Arturo Sardiña, Olomidara,
in 1976.[3] Omí Sanyá soon moved to Miami and
began to sing with other drum ensembles there, and especially after 1980 as
more consecrated drums began to arrive from Cuba.
In the 1980s, Omí Sanyá
continued gaining popularity in Miami, and though new apuóns came up,
most Olorishas sought her to sing at their wemileres and agbés
because of her incredible voice. In
1988, Omí Sanyá and I were the apuóns for two stage productions
that were presented in Miami: Wemilere: Fiesta a los Orishas, and Ibolorun: Paraiso
Yoruba. In the late 1990s, Omí Sanyá
also performed in Miami’s South Beach accompanying the Ifé Ilé dance
ensemble and Olubatá Ezequiel Torres and his group, performing
Afro-Cuban music and dance, which also included Orisha music. In 2000, Omí Sanyá also appeared in "For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story," an HBO movie about the life of the famous Cuban trumpet player. In the scene, Omí Sanyá appears in a solar in the town of Belén, in Havana, the place where the famous Cuban musician Chano Pozo was born, where she sang a in a Cuban solar in Belén, the town where the famous Cuban musician Chano Pozo was born. As the scene unfolds, even before the viewer sees Omí Sanyá's face, the sound of her voice in the background as she sang a guaguanco is unmistakable. Those of us who knew her immediately recognized the inimitable voice.
In 2001, Omí Sanyá was featured as
one of the artists in an exhibit at the Historical Museum of Southern Florida for
which I was guest curator, “At the Crossroads: Afro-Cuban Orisha Arts in Miami.” Days after her death, the museum informed me
that the Board of Trustees and Staff of the Museum had made a donation in
memory of Olympia Alfaro to the Museum which will be used to purchase research
materials for the Museum. To
commemorate this gift, the Museum will place a bookplate in the 2 volumes of Los
Instrumentos de la Musica Afrocubana, by Fernando Ortiz that the Museum
owns. Omí Sanyá, unlike her
predecessors, has gone down in the history books.
Fig. 7: Program from the 1990 theater production of Wemilere
(Fiesta a los
Orishas) produced by the Cabildo Yoruba Omo Orisha that
I directed at the time.
Omí Sanyá was given a gift by Olodumare: her incredible
voice. There was nothing she enjoyed
more than singing for the orishas. In
fact, for her it was a mandate. In her
ordination itá, Elegbá asked her to sing for him whenever she
could. It was her custom to salute Elegbá
every morning with a few stanzas of ibarabó agó mojubá before she began
her day. If one thing has to be
emphasized about the life of apuón and Iyalorisha Olympia Alfaro,
Omí Sanyá, it is the fact that she lived a full life in the service of Olodumare
and the orishas. She sang for them with
passion, devotion, and an incredible religious zeal, and she did this until her
very last conscious day.
The way in which Omí Sanyá
died, no matter how hard it may be to accept for those who loved her, I am certain
was the way she would have wanted to die.
Omí Sanyá died in the most dignified manner, one that any true apuón
undoubtedly wishes for: singing for the orishas. Without a doubt, Omí Sanyá has now joined the ranks of
other great Lukumí apuóns who have preceded her to orún. I am certain that at this time, she is
singing praises to Olodumare and the incredible sound of her voice must
be reverberating through orún, with José Antonio Tinibú looking
on.
Wemileres in
Chicago: December, 2001.
Fig. 8: From left José Gonzalez, Ogún Bí, Omí Sanyá,
and myself
before the start of the first of the weekend’s three wemileres.
This first day was dedicated to Ogún.
Fig. 9: Hanging out with the guys at the motel, Omí Sanyá
makes merry.
Fig. 10: Dinner at Lalo’s
Restaurant in Chicago. From left to
right: a Lalo's patron who
was also waiting for a table at the restaurant and wanted to know what “part
of Africa” the
ladies were from(!!!!!!); Olorisha Brigitte Thomas, Abirolá,
Omí Sanyá, and
iyalorisha Asabí Thomas, Agongolojú.