Dancing Spirit, is an intimate portrait film following Mambo Ashade; scholar, dancer, and an initiate of Spirit, as she returns to the birthplace of her practice. In Benin, Mambo Ashade is invited into greater study of Vodou through dance as a technology to deepen connection and remain available to the energies of Life.

Mambo Ashade’s story of dance as a spiritual technology for elevated consciousness and bringing forward healing is documented to provide a disruption in stereotypical depictions of Vodou while contributing to the legacies of dance broadly, and Haitian Vodou specifically.

Dance is our route to find our personal truth. Our route to self-discovery. The Spiritual Power of Dance has transformed, healed and shaped each of our lives. We are artistic vessels, mediums and community servants, embodying Spirit - our life force, the person inside of us, the part of us that never dies, that is eternal, infinite and limitless. "Zetwal Ashade Bon Manbo"

You supporting this film means you are helping to;

1. …Raise Cultural Awareness;

Documenting Mambo Ashade and her relationship to dance as spiritual technology will serve to personalize the experience of Vodou and dispel prevalent representations of a demonized envisaging towards a more accurate depiction of the internal systems and practices.

2 …Encourage Cultural Exchange;

Similar to practices of eastern spiritual development and philosophy, Vodou contains multitudes of wisdom and technologies providing existential meaning, and processes to raise consciousness through practice(s) specific to African & Diasporic cultures. From a place of increased cultural awareness, Vodou can be placed in conversation and provocative relationship with diverse systems for cultural exchange.

3. …Contribute to Legacy & Archival documentation;

The works of dance created, reimagined and ultimately preserved, serve to leave behind a record of Vodou as it exists in this moment in time, for use in the future interpolations of scholarship across disciplines to reference.

Dancing Spirits Documentary

Support embodying wisdom, disrupting narratives, and dancing the spirit of Vodou.