Life
Gebre Hanna was born in Fogera, a district on the eastern shore of Lake Tana, and his interest in religious learning brought him to the city of Gondar towards the end of the Zemene Mesafint, where he became a teacher at the Church of Ba'eta Maryam in the city and eventually its aleqa.
While at Baeta Maryam, Aleqa Gebre Hanna invented a new style of religious dancing, known as Ya-Takla after his son. The Ethiopian Church is unique amongst Christian traditions in its traditional incorporation of ritual dances (known as aquaquam) in its ceremonies, which were performed by dabtaras. As Levine describes Aleqa Gebre Hanna's innovation:
- In the traditional style of aquaquam, the bodies and sticks of the dancers move up and down, punctuating the flow of chant with alternatively gradual and abrupt movements. Alaqa Gebre Hanna, inspired by the lateral movement of the waves of Lake Tana and the bamboo reeds in the breeze at its shore, taught that bodies should sway from side to side. Although the conservative clergy in Gondar rejected this teaching, his son Takla successfully introduced to Debre Tabor, where it spread to the rest of Ethiopia.
According to the one-time Ethiopian ambassador to the United States, Berhanu Denqe, who had received his education there, Aleqa Gebre was one of the teachers at the church school of Saint Raguel on Mount Entoto. He was often a guest of the Emperor Menelik II and his wife Empress Taytu, and his exchanges with these monarchs are the setting for many of the stories told about him.
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