Rasambleman, Sa Na Kenbe? The Lakou as a Space for Political Transformation

With Rachelle Jeanty, Luis Garay, Amina Szecödy, Kelvin Kilonzo, Lukresia Quismundo, John Shades, Riva Précil

In Creole, French and English

Following the tradition of the Bwa Kayiman ceremony that took place in 1791 and sparked the Haitian Revolution, the Sylvia Wynter Foyer at HKW and the installation The Playground of All Possibilities are activated by performative gestures centring the voice as a tool of resistance: the voice that sings, the voice that mourns, the voice that speaks, the voice that whispers. Taking inspiration from traditions of agoras such as Senegalese Pencs, Colombian Mingas, Peruvian Peñas, Haitian Lakous, and others, the space is dedicated to weaving and activating together historical, cultural, ancestral, and contemporary narratives pertaining to stories of liberation from Haiti and various Caribbean geographies. 

The Playground of All Possibilities (2024) as proposed by Malagasy artist Joël Andrianomearisoa for Bwa Kayiman–Tout Moun se Moun offers a space of ascendence and transcendence, of presence and infinity, of the grandiose and the intimate, created by his monumental canvases suspended from the ceiling, the form of which also suggest ghostly presences. The installation could be read through Edouard Glissant’s archipelagic thinking, which urges an understanding of the multiple aspects of relationality that human islanders are entwined with, as well as the various supra-beings they are embraced by. The archipelagos convened by the artist do not stand solely for individual landforms but refer to all constellations of terrain, water, human, and non-human beings who share the cosmos.

Rasambleman, Sa Na Kenbe? A combination of terms borrowed from Haitian Creole constitute a call to gather, mingle, reflect, and collectively define a path to take together. Sa Na Kenbe? or ‘what will we keep?’ constitutes both a questioning and an affirmation of the need to be rooted in Haitian cultural heritage in order to achieve liberation. Seminal Haitian musicians Toto Bissainthe and Lakou Mizik have employed their voices for the voiceless, calling for a union of forces which partly influenced singers Rachelle Jeanty and Riva Précil who bring forth a repertoire of traditional Haitian songs carrying the narratives of Haiti’s intergenerational cultural revolution into the present. 

Choreographer Luis Garay presents his current research Zoundbi Touch, inspired by Caribbean literary movements, styles, and the ideas of spiralism, quantum literature, and archipelagic thinking, as intimated by Caribbean thinkers such as Frankétienne, Wilson Harris, and Édouard Glissant. Garay, accompanied by the performance and artistic contribution of Amina Szecödy, Kelvin Kilonzo, Lukresia Quismundo, and John Shades, create moodscapes evoking fragmented landscapes, tales, poems, and histories of the Caribbean, where speakers and listeners are engaged in parsing and interpreting, naming and not naming, building meaning amidst errantry. ‘The Caribbean’ is no longer a realm of lush fantasy, nor a place to return to; instead, it is a kind of horizon that provides tools to engage in new ways of listening, doing, and relating to one another.

Next date:

• Date Friday, 02/August/2024 22:30
• Venue Haus der Kulturen der Welt
• Address John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10, 10557 Berlin-Tiergarten