Ogoun Badagris by Christopher Rouse

Ogoun Badagris derives its inspiration from Haitian drumming patterns. Ogoun Badagris is one of the most terrible and violent of all Voodoo loas or deities, and can be appeased only by human blood sacrifice. This work may thus be interpreted as a dance of appeasement. The four conga drums, the metal plates, the sleighbells, and the cabasa represent traditional instruments used in the ritual. The word “reler,” which the performers must shriek at the conclusion of the work, is the Voodoo equivalent of the Judaeo-Christian “amen.”