In Ouidah in southern Benin, ceremonies dedicated to the Vodun known as Gambada are conducted through structured sequences of drumming, movement, and collective participation. Vodun is a religious system practiced in parts of West Africa, based on a belief in a supreme creator and a pantheon of spirits that act as intermediaries between the human and spiritual worlds. The Gambada ritual is associated with relationships and social balance and is performed in contexts where intervention is sought within the community.

Participants enter the space and engage in repetitive, rhythmic movement guided by drums. Over time, some individuals begin to display altered states of awareness: changes in posture, coordination, and responsiveness that are described locally as being supposedly in trance and interpreted as moments of spirit possession.

It is at this stage that white kaolin is applied to the faces and bodies of those supposedly in trance. The substance is associated with the spirit world and with purity, and is used to mark and regulate those believed to be under the influence of the Vodun. Within the ritual context, it symbolizes a transition from ordinary presence to a state of contact with the unseen.