Ebinum Brothers.
Notes From The Underground.
Is it perhaps mistaken of us to regard the art of dance as a bodily practice rather than a spiritual one? The Ebinum Brothers might tell you so. ‘Dancing is a feeling, the emotion behind the message,’ state Victory and Marvel. ‘We don’t really plan the movements,’ continues Marvel, the younger of the two. ‘We have a story we’re telling and that’s our mission. The movement comes from within. We don’t choose that.’
The Lagos-born duo document their intensely passionate and visceral performances on YouTube, approaching each short film as a space to explore sentiments from love and loneliness to searching and belonging. Through rippling limbs and contorting motions, their movements become metaphysical, shaping their bodies to capture an abstract feeling. ‘When we’re dancing, we can’t think of anything else,’ continues Marvel. ‘It’s almost like we start dancing and the mind goes in that direction. We’re not telling each other where to move or put our hands. It’s just in the mind. It’s just knowing your base story and it just naturally forms.’
For their performance for ‘Notes from the Underground’, that ‘base story’ is the theme of reason – specifically, the age-old idiom that suggests everything does, in fact, happen for a reason. ‘It’s about something that has really happened to us,’ explains Victory. ‘Even sometimes when things might not be going right, or going the way you want them to, there’s a reason for why that’s happened, and it’s for a better way. We want to show people that you can feel for good things to happen; it’s about thinking positively and that you’re always a winner.”
To visually execute this philosophy, and in the spirit of collaboration – an attribute which they stress is important to their work – the brothers called upon their circle of friends, with a voiceover by the actor Elander Moore, alongside producer and musician Jonathan Seale. Born in Texas, Seale was raised in the jungles of South America, where he was given the name Son of Cloud by the Yukpa, an indigenous Venezuelan tribe. ‘We worked on a project together before,’ says Victory, ‘and we really liked his work. When we told him about the project, he had this song and it was really something different. We could picture it in our heads and it made us realise the song was perfect. He really spoke to us, and the song came to life.’
Spanning two locations, from the mainland Magodo Estate in Lagos to the island of Lekki, the brothers teamed up with fellow Nigerian photographer Frank Lenz, who recently shot the pair for Calvin Klein. ‘He really understands us,’ says Victory, ‘so working with him is really easy because we connect with each other. And we actually met him through our sister – they’re engaged.’ How long does it take to bring their sentimental vignettes to life? ‘About three days to choreograph and a week to master everything.’
While their latest routine complements their poignant films on the internet, this one, given the circumstances facing the world during its creation, felt somewhat different for them. ‘It would have to be the distance,’ Victory reflect on their favourite aspect of the process. ‘Doing things without being in the UK, having calls, meetings, picking the clothes, styling ourselves, seeing the Gucci collection and choosing these two looks, which we felt really fit the project and gave us the freedom to move in. This was something we knew we always wanted to share and bring to life. When you think about it, it’s just so special knowing that all of this was brought out of that process.’
A famous philosopher once noted that reason is the power of synthesising into unity, a oneness. Perhaps it is the connectedness and uniformity of this fraternity, as they move to articulate the inner thoughts of their mind, that will be the mainstay for these dancing souls. ‘Sometimes, when we watch ourselves, we’re shocked,’ says Victory. ‘When we move together, we already know the next move the other person is going to do because it’s more like we’re one mind. Once we’re out of that state and watching the videos, we think, “How did I know you were going to move to that point?” It’s incredible. We don’t know what we just did.’
