Ìf’ọ̀kàn b’Alẹ̀ as somatic rest: cross-cultural semiotics of cardio-gravity-contact in Èkìtì-Yorùbá and Western art therapies

Abstract

This study attempts modelling and canonising the Ekiti-Yoruba concept - Ìf’Ọ̀kàn b’Alẹ̀, the literal word for “rest,” which plainly means to touch the heart on the ground physically, and which also means proprioception, in medical and somatic parlances. The concept, Ìf’Ọ̀kàn b’Alẹ̀ is therefore operationalized in this study as cardio-gravity-contact. It is also being examined as a theory of somatic rest and as an  African template of somatic rest, which can serve as a direct counterpart of the Western notion of proprioception. The investigation that gave birth to this report received primary motivations from a set of data, collected in the UK in October 2019, during a research and training programme on the physical approach to proprioception, at the Centre for Embodiment, Somatic Dance Therapy and Education in Cheltenham, England. This study, therefore, intends to justify that man’s gravitational connection to the earth perpetually constitutes manifestations of truth and meaning, which simultaneously abound in all cultures through expressions found in artistic, philosophical and vocational contexts. Drawing from the theory of embodiment as a basis for modelling Ìf’Ọ̀kàn b’Alẹ̀ as a new theory of African Somatics, this study used In-depth and Key Informant interviews for the collection of data while the data were content-analysed. It concludes that practices similar to somatic rest are in different parts of the world, other than Europe and America. There are logical transnational connections of cross-cultural existential mentalities, which manifest in the use of the human body and its connection to the physical environment as lived-in or experiential space. These logical transnational connections of cross-cultural existential mentalities are usually revealled in historical
relics of languages, philosophy and art.