Light for Haiti

In honor of celebrating Haitian culture, Rara Tou Limen Dance Troup received a standing ovation at the opening of their Fall Season’s first full-length Repertory Concert.

Limye pou Ayiti…Lavi Kontinye!, Light for Haiti…Life Continues, is the choreo-prayer and artistic offering to Haiti – performed by Rara Tou Limen at Laney College Theatre in Oakland, CA.

As the media topics have shifted to other parts of the world, for Haitian people, life will not be the same for those severely affected by the earthquake.

RTL bridges the gap in solidarity as it showcases the stories, struggles and spirit of Haiti, the first free Black Republic in the world. 

Known for performing at festivals, cultural and academic institutions throughout the bay area, including The San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, The Malcolm X Jazz Arts Festival, the deYoung Museum, San Francisco Carnival, UC Berkeley and more, RTL was established in 2004 by Artistic Director Portsha Jefferson.  

“She is the centerpiece,” says Patrice Roland, lead male dancer with Rara Tou Limen Dance Troup.  

According to Roland, RTL offers Bay Area residents and dancers nationwide the opportunity to experience Haitian music, dance and culture through classes, workshops, performances and educational events in the United States and Haiti.  

The season kicked off with the Dance Workshop on Thursday, October 6th at the Malonga Casquelourd Center in Oakland taught by world  renowned visionary choreographer, and educator Jeanguy Saintus, from Haiti.

Saintus goes globally teaching master classes around the world.

With the closing of Haiti’s leading arts institution and cultural hub due to the major earthquake, instructors and dance companies have no where to train and produce quality and meaningful work. 

Saintus is founder of Ayikodans and Artcho Danse, a dance center training program for children and adults in Port-au-Prince. The center provides scholarship programs to those unable to afford tuition.

Invited guest artists from around the world teach there.

“What most of America know about Haiti is its misery. They don’t know that the people are happy when they dance and dream of being onstage. Helping others realize their dreams to be onstage, especially those kids coming from a hard time, is what I am about,” says Jeanguy Saintus.

Haiti born Saintus, honorary guest choreographer for the season’s premier says, “I want to give dance its place. First in Haiti, and then being able to share it with the world. I first place myself where I come from,” says Saintus.

The ever-present history and identity, the collective past and the personal present, the paradoxical state of being that is the condition of the spirit of Haiti reflects the resilience and strength of the culture and remains as a candlelit ritual in the memory of the victims.

The performance began in a darkened theatre with prayer chants echoing throughout as the audience is taken on a meditative journey to the mythical land of the ancestors, invocating stories, mystery, social identity and a quest for the self.

The curtain rises on a dimly lighted stage of blue lights with a large full moon superimposed in the background. Blue lights shine on flowing silk panels of fabric across the stage creating blue waters brought to evoke life. Shifting vertical lights create an ocean of beautiful projections. The ever-changing landscape materializes with magical inevitability.

The lighting is as brilliantly realized as the visual design.

Permeated by fascinating movement and style, dancers stomped out rhythms as a ritualistic village scene arrives.

The embodiment of the village people in magnificent colors fed the drummers as the audience became one with the performance.  

“The piece on the ancestors is so moving and beautiful,” says Gena O’Brien, a bay area dancer from Berkeley.

“There was beautiful technique, not everyone can do that kind of dance with the freedom of movement as seen here tonight,” says Samar Nassar, of Hipline Studio, in Berkeley.

The beautiful dance skirts take at least 6 to 8 yards of fabrics.

Daniel “Brav” Brevil, musical director, from Haiti, brought down the house with traditional Haitian Folkloric rhythms as well as contemporary jazz and reggae beats.

“In the last dance, the Rara piece, the personalities of the musicians and the dancers come out,” says Roland.

These experiences are the heart of Saintus’, Jefferson’s and Brevil’s work.