By Toyin Falola
On December 29th, 2025, after a presentation on my latest book, Yoruba Metaphysics, I was unaware that the dance performance that followed would speak to the book’s themes. I will create a metaphysical narratology of what Qudus Onikeku, the Director of J. Randle Centre for Yorùbá Culture & History, attempted to produce in texts and steps.
Cosmological interpretations worldwide arise from a people’s perceptual insight into the nuances and complexities of the universe. Each community of people provides meaning to the signals of the world in accordance with factors rooted in their geographical landscape. Since the realities and experiences found in the world’s geographies have distinct properties unavailable everywhere, it is understandable why such realities underscore how people perceive the universe and the physical and metaphysical properties that lurk within it. For the Yorùbá people, their understanding of nature draws on these basic universal principles, which explains why they have a cosmological overview of the world that is sometimes more complex and arguably more detailed.
In essence, each phenomenon is drawn from and equally garbed in ideological nuances that explain the fleeting nature of everything, revealing, in the process, the complex relationship that exists amongst the things of nature and how they function independently yet interconnectedly. In this exposé, some essential cosmological concepts accord with universal order and its role in structuring universal energies. Dance is one of these concepts, and it will be investigated in this writing. To dance is to undertake a sequence of rhythmic steps or movements, aimed to elicit social interaction among the people, to inspire social cohesion, and togetherness. At the center of a dance, therefore, is a desire to accomplish pleasure, not one that exclusively suits an individual, but one that transcends it.
As dancing indicates a complex communication among different biological properties, so also does nature involve a conscious unification of interstellar properties, producing profound results that facilitate existence and sustain it in the process. In the cosmological explanation of the Yorùbá people, various physical and metaphysical bodies work together toward a common goal. The sky, the forest, the river, the sun, and other mercurial bodies have existed independently for millennia, yet, even with their scientific knowledge, humans have not uncovered the mysteries around them in their entirety. From the compendium of Yorùbá knowledge, which is embodied in the Ifá divination system, these universal systems have existed for moments of history that cannot be accurately accounted.
For that reason, it is believed that each of them has specific mandates; they are given different tasks, all of which are expected to form the foundation of a habitable, pliable, and usable terrain that various manifestations of creatures would occupy and conduct activities that are supernaturally imposed on them. Unlike many other groups of people in the world, the Yorùbá believe that the physical universe, as it can be decoded by human sight, does not exclusively belong to humans whose biological properties are observable and even touchable. Many unseen forces are believed to occupy it. Regardless of the delineation of that occupancy, the human and nonhuman dwellers of the universe operate in an inter-energy unity that helps keep balance in the world. This again speaks volumes about how dance becomes a thematic constant here.
Onikeku works Obàtálá to the poetry of the dance. Obàtálá belongs to the category of Olódùmarè-sent emissaries with specific responsibilities in the universe. Uniquely, energies are the basis of the universal systems. In the case of this Òrìsà Obàtálá, he is a masculine energy that is accorded the responsibility for the purification of the universal system. Meanwhile, this assignment is predicated on the fact that he is the epitome of wisdom, acquired through protracted observation, examination, and interrogation of what Olódùmarè has established. Because of this quality, Elédùmarè imposed on Obàtálá the task of manufacturing the human beings, prefaced first by the design of the physical properties of the beings.
Hence, human biology is shaped exclusively by this Òrìsà, indirectly tasked to ensure that the lives he molds are sanitized through specific actions. It is for this reason that Obàtálá is considered for the purification of the universe so that his efforts would not become immaterial in the long run. Similarly close to the functions of Obàtálá is Sàngó, who also remains an imposing force in the cosmological sphere. Unlike Obàtálá, Sàngó is tasked with providing and regulating the combustible energies of the universe so that issues of light and direction are clearly overseen. Sàngó is the custodian of the universal energies that produce light through lightning, sending signals to the human world of the underlying potentials in some worldly resources to be tapped and exploited for light. Sàngó is dreadful yet filled with warmth, protecting and guiding.
The dance honors the Olokun, who is the gatekeeper of oceanic systems. The aquatic community is home to numerous beings that themselves make massive contributions to the smooth operation of universal systems. Before the world was transformed by technology, the Yorùbá understood the workings of the aquatic industry, recognizing that it harbors inexplicable mysteries that are not necessarily there to complicate universal engagements but to help sustain the universe through its specific responsibilities. On the surface of the earth, the map of the world indicates that the ocean occupies a significant part of it, revalidating the indisputable essence of the energy and its gatekeeper, Olokun.
Other scientific declarations clarify the importance of Olokun beyond the mercurial context of the earth. In fact, the realization that the ocean is a fundamental determinant of life on our planet and others underscores its underlying impact on universal energies. Whether directly or indirectly, Olokun is believed to provide the necessary operations to protect all planetary systems through services that check or guide them in various ways. Meanwhile, Olódùmarè does not entrust the responsibility for controlling aquatic materials solely to Olokun. There is Òsun, another feminine energy that operates from the river, so that it can use the water powers and essence to introduce greatness to the human family. Òsun, represented in the dance, represents the energy that supports and lays down the regulations for feminine essentials and how they can be incorporated into human life and engagements.
There is also Ògún, the god of metals, the supernatural being charged with organizing the metallurgical industry so that human endeavors would bring the creativity required to lead an exemplary lifestyle. The fact remains that with Ògún, there is a rebirth, because it is the energy that enhances recycling; it helps humans rebuild from scratch to produce excellent results. Because Ògún deals in metals, it is responsible for clearing the path that leads humanity to self-actualization and self-realization. Meanwhile, there is also the Èsù, another essential metaphysical being that is given a very defining responsibility in the universal engagements. It is Èsù, which, for instance, forges in humans the ability to make choices from the arrays of possibilities available to them. As the dance shows, it enables humans to bear the consequences of their choices, educating them about the binary nature of human decisions. Èsù Òdàrà, as it is popularly called, challenges humans to reflect on their choices by putting into life a series of occasions that would make one reconsider otherwise permanent decisions that they have earlier made.
Between lovers, Èsù comes in as a test; between friends, he intervenes in questions of loyalty and betrayal. It is no coincidence that Yorùbá people see Èsù as the energy that enhances justice. All these cosmological representations in the dance, therefore, fulfill their responsibilities through collaboration and harmony, indicating a fusion. Just as a dance is performed through the interconnection of biological properties, these energies maintain a sequence of interstellar movements that interact to sustain universal balance.
