Dandha da Hora – Elisangela da Hora Sousa, was born in Salvador da Bahia – Brazil, on the 17th of November of 1975. She began her artistic activities at age six in the traditional Afro-Brazilian School of Carnival Ilê Aiyê as a dance student. In 1982, Dandha participated in the show Night of the Black Beauty, which marks her debut as a professional dancer for a public of approximately ten thousand people. Since then she remained in Ile Aiye choreographing, dancing, and teaching all over the world, with 22 years in the house she is the longest standing dancer in the group. Dandha is responsible for high profile stage works in Bahia, including the 50 years of Odebrech Foundation with the Caimmy Family, International Festival of the Children’s’ day in the Liberdade neighborhood, Perc Pan (Panorama Percussivo Mundial) in Salvador and in Paris, and Cultural Latin American Market. Dandha has participations with the great names of the Brazilian popular music such as the first DVD by Daniela Mercury, Several shows with Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Dorival Caimmy, Carlinhos Brown, Djavan, Milton Nascimento, Margareth Menezes Elba Ramalho, Orquestra Afro-Bahiana do Pelourinho of the ethnomusicologist and researcher of folkloric culture of Brazil Emilia Biancardi, amongst many more.

Dandha was born and raised in a universe of rhythms, with direct influences from the Afro tradition of oral transmission in the Terreiros of Candomble (places of adoration of the Orixa). She naturally brings in her dance elements and rites of her up bringing.

The Free Afro Dance of Ile Aiye is unique as it is based on the sounds of the terreiros of Candomble; it is rich in paradas (stops), quebradas (breaks), e chamadas (calls) The rhythms change from nation to nation as it plays for Orixa, Caboclos, Inkises or Voduns. The Samba de Roda reveals in the Terreiro, the power of the Caboclos dance. The Xaxado, Xote and Baiao are rhythms and dances traditional to the northeast of Brazil that in Ilê Aiyê are transformed and fused becoming base and convention. The Samba Reggae, Samba of Roda, Maracatu, Salsa and many other rhythms are attuned to the drums of Ile and graciously and uniquely by the dancers of the group.

The reunion of this entire cultural legacy allows for the so called “Dança Afro Livre do Ilê Aiyê, (Free Afro Dance of Ilê Aiyê) freedom for continuous improvisation of expression over a base, a foundation above which, salutations to elements in nature are expressed in the light movement of arms, legs and rips right on the rhythm, by those who bring within these cultural heritage which survived oceans, chains and more than 500 years of repressions.

Dandha, in teaching rhythms and movements, feels an enormous responsibility over the art she helps promote and perpetuate, the consciousness on the ancestor’s rules over the precision of the rhythms, movements and mythical symbols.