Staging the Nation through Art Music of the Haitian DiasporaAuthor(s): Diana Golden Source: Journal of Haitian Studies , Vol. 24, No. 2 (Fall 2018), pp. 37-84 Published by: Center for Black Studies Research Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26600004 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Center for Black Studies Research is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Haitian Studies This content downloaded from 86.59.13.237 on Thu, 08 Jul 2021 09:55:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The Journal of Haitian Studies, Volume 24 No. 2 © 2018 STAGING THE NATION THROUGH ART MUSIC OF THE HAITIAN DIASPORA Diana Golden Independent scholar and musician “Nation is narration. The stories we tell each other about our national belonging and being constitute the nation.” —Stefan Berger, Narrating the Nation In music they imagine as representing the nation, composers reflect priorities of the present by choosing which elements to include or discard in their compositions. These musical choices collectively reflect a particular narrative about a national musical history. Philip Bohlman writes that music acquires meaning because it responds “to a historical awareness of a shared history . [that is] invented to serve the nation by participating in the narration of its history.”1 A “staged” history elevates certain elements over others in order to create a narrative that presents the preferred national image. According to Michel-Rolph Trouillot in Silencing the Past, the production of historical narratives is controlled by those in power.2 While the historical narrative of Saint-Domingue may have been controlled by those in power, the historical narrative of Haiti often served as a reaction against threats to national autonomy. After the US Occupation, the historical narrative of art music was shaped frequently as a reaction against those in power. The musical developments that were influential—and recorded as a result—were reactions against the United States. The call for a national musical voice, the exploration of African and folkloric elements of Haitian music, and in turn the rejection of American and European stylistic elements grew from the sociopolitical context in Haiti at the time. The pull toward mizik angaje, or politically and socially engaged music-making, contributed to the production of music history as a form of resistance. After the Occupation, as Haiti looked externally for international recognition, art music was used for further nation-building, creating a cultural image across the diaspora. Because certain characteristics have come to be known as unique to the Haitian musical voice, composers who especially represent them in This content downloaded from 86.59.13.237 on Thu, 08 Jul 2021 09:55:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 38 Diana Golden their compositions have been celebrated for promoting Haitian music. These elements—European dance music, rhythms and melodies from folkloric dance, and efforts to counter the stigma surrounding Vodou music in state and popular perception—have been present and evolving in the music of the Haitian diaspora. Composers such as Carmen Brouard and Julio Racine embraced Haitian elements of musical style in their compositions, staging their works for musical consumption at home and abroad according to the priorities and historical contexts of their own times. It is clear that just as these composers sought to establish their own musical voices, they also sought to create a Haitian musical voice to be recognized internationally. As a result, the staging of a national musical identity in Haiti occurred not only through composition but also through advocacy; a renegotiation of folkloric representations in ethnography, tourism and dance; and heated discussion across multiple artistic and political genres over Haiti’s national identity. Musical values in the years of Brouard and Racine echoed ideas in commerce, philosophy, art, and literature that reacted to international competition and threats to sovereignty. Brouard and Racine’s compositional interests reflect the cosmopolitanism and fragmentation communicated by the Haitian diaspora from the 1960s to the present. In this article, I analyze elements of musical style in the works of Brouard and Racine for their contributions to the staging of a Haitian national musical identity. This research builds on Trouillot’s idea that the construction of a nation’s historical narrative is influenced by factors such as power and politics. It also draws from Michael Largey’s extensive research on how Haitian art music of the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth century helped to perform the nation and shape how Haiti was viewed abroad. In particular, I build on Largey’s discussion of composer Werner Jaegerhuber as staging the nation in order to examine how composers of the diaspora have shaped a narrative about the nation through their art music. Mary Procopio and Rebecca Dirksen’s scholarship on Jaegerhuber, Racine, and Brouard helps to contextualize the composers and the specific works analyzed here. Lastly, Claude Dauphin’s writings on the styles and forms of Vodou music and on the history of Haitian art music inform my understanding of elements of compositional style in Haitian art music. This article describes the historical context in which composers of the Haitian diaspora have created art music; converses with ideas by Trouillot, Stefan Berger, and Bohlman on the expression of nationhood through music; examines elements of musical style that Haitian composers participating in the diaspora share; and analyzes how these elements function in works by Brouard and Racine. I conclude by summarizing the activities of contemporary creators and proponents of Haitian art music and suggesting areas for further study. This content downloaded from 86.59.13.237 on Thu, 08 Jul 2021 09:55:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Staging the Nation through Art Music of the Haitian Diaspora 39 STAGING THE NATION “The yanvalou . it creates a certain nostalgia. But, a false nostalgia! Because the piece is not really a yanvalou. But harmonically, melodically, it is like something you play but have to look behind you to see it, it is something you leave behind. You leave it behind.” —Julio Racine, about his piece for flute and piano, Tangente au Yanvalou (1975), as quoted by Michael Largey, “Musical Ethnography in Haiti” THE STAGING OF POLITICAL MUSIC UNDER THE DUVALIERS As both rulers of the Duvalier regime used Haitian popular music for political gain, Haitian composers employed art music as a means of critiquing the government. Their inclusion of elements such as Vodou rhythms, protest songs, and subjects or themes of the diaspora such as loss or exile was key to the political resistance in their music. François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, having run on a noiriste platform of political power and social mobility for the Haitian Black middle class against the multiracial elite, consolidated power with the help of the tontons macoutes, a militia that caused his opponents to “disappear.”3 After his death in 1971, his son Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier continued the dictatorship in Haiti until 1986, when he was overthrown by the Haitian military. Jean-Claude’s rule was marked by the spread of swine fever, the AIDS epidemic, food riots, economic crisis, and a decline of tourism. Both Duvalier leaders tolerated Vodou alongside Catholicism in an effort to win popular support.4 The months following the regime change held the largest wave of persecution of Vodou in Haitian history, with Vodou priests targeted and killed.5 In 1987, however, Vodou was legalized and all penalties for Vodou practice abolished.6 Representations of Vodou in music fluctuated as acceptance of Vodou practice waxed and waned. François Duvalier’s reign of power extended into the Haitian musical realm, as popular musicians and ensembles were forced to perform for government-run Carnivals, campaign rallies, presidential tours, and parties for the macoutes.7 The government went further than hiring fanfa (military bands) to entertain at events: officials would commission prominent musicians to write pieces based on Duvalierist propaganda.8 At the 1965 Carnival, for instance, Wébert Sicot was made to write “Men Jet-La” (Here comes the jet) in honor of a new airport built by Duvalier, while the Ensemble Nemours Jean-Baptiste was hired to write “Tout Limen” (All lit up) to honor Duvalier’s electricity program.9 At the 1967 Carnival, a musicians’ float was bombed to protest the pro-Duvalier songs they played as well as the poor economy and government-incited violence in Haiti at the time.10 This content downloaded from 86.59.13.237 on Thu, 08 Jul 2021 09:55:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 40 Diana Golden Like his father, Baby Doc used popular music to advance his political aims. In turn, however, popular music ensembles represented the masses in voicing political resistance during his regime in ways that they could not during Papa Doc’s rule.11 Just as Vodou-djaz and konpa had been popular in the 1950s, mini-djaz and konpa direk were popular in the 1960s and 1970s, while in the 1980s and 1990s, mizik rasin (roots music) and zouk rose in popularity.12 According to Peter Manuel, songs of protest (in keeping with the tradition of the Haitian konplent and chant pwen) developed across the diaspora beginning in the late 1970s.13 Gage Averill extensively documents political resistance by Haiti’s popular music groups, but Haitian composers of mizik savant (art music) also responded to political oppression through their music.