Communing/Lábẹ́ Igi Òrom̀bó (Under the Orange Tree) , 2024
I thought of the idea for this piece when my mom and her friends assembled in a circle and sang a nursery rhyme in Yorùbá, Lábẹ́ Igi Òrom̀bó a few summers ago. I reflected on passing under a tree and hear the chirping and ss sss of insect voices. I wrote in my notes—
The mothers sang a song about being under the orange tree, and I imagined ancestors waiting in the wings, prayers streaming down on the shade seekers below, branches heavy with the bodies of our dead, and us waiting under the orange tree, patiently.
I chose the title “communing” to describe the process the subject is embarking on with their ancestors, not acknowledged through a direct gaze, but perhaps through hearing and experiencing this full and active tree and the world around them.
