In the cultural milieu of 1950s and ‘60s Spanish Harlem, Carmen Oramas Caballery was celebrated as one of its most influential Afro-Caribbean religious leaders. Attendees of her spiritual performances recall sensational experiences, detailing the poignantly overwhelming auditory and visual elements she incorporated into these nonspecific religious ceremonies. Even into the early twenty-first century, just before Carmen's illness forced her to retire, she employed a set of well-established syncretic devices to stimulate her heterogeneous viewership. Kristine Juncker, who was present at one of her final performances, details how drummers accompanied the mellifluous tones of Carmen's singing while droplets of water rained down on a dancing audience of both adults and children. She notes that the performance was “not likely to be forgotten by those who were present” (p. 128).
Carmen's elaborate presentation welding the visual and participatory situates the sensational sublime that Afro-Cuban, and more broadly Afro-Caribbean, religious practices invoke to...