The Romanticism of the Oyá: Feelings, Bodies, Memories, and the Multiple Space-Times of the Medium

Abstract Subjective processes of change, dreams, dance, theater representations, translations, and memories of local and global heritage—all of these things are a kind of grammar that constitutes parts of the experiences of mediumship practiced in candomblé in Germany. I have observed these practices in my fieldwork since 2009. New forms of sacred agency in bodily practices, the different bodies moving in dance, music, and theater, and even the processes of trans-nationalization themselves are crucial for us in thinking about how these religious practices are recreated through improvisation and creativity in multiple areas and across borders. It is important to rethink the relationships and entanglements researchers maintain with the religious phenomena expressed in their objects of study. This paper stimulates discussions based on ethnographic experiences and explores the dimensions of human sensory perception through religious trance, illness, healing, dance, and ritual theater.