The Living and the Dead Ensemble unites eight Haitian poets and performers. Together with filmmaker Louis Henderson and curator Olivier Marboeuf, they explore new narratives for the history and the present of Haiti. For Kunstenfestivaldesarts they conceive a twofold project. During the day, the space presents Ouvertures, the ensemble’s first fi lm premiered at the Berlinale this year, imagining the return of Toussaint Louverture — the hero of the Haitian Revolution, — to today’s Port-au-Prince and its young generation. When the night falls, the space is transformed by The Wake. Closely linked to the world of plantation, Black Caribbean poetic sees the day as linked with forced labor and violence, and the night as a space for re-composition for a community of exhausted bodies; a place for reparations, cultural reinvention, and preparation for combats to come. By bringing together poetry, moving images, songs and guest, The Wake is a nocturnal performance travelling throughout history and several nights: from the one of August 1791 in Bois Caïman, Haiti — where a slaves’ assembly started the revolution for independence, — until the largest riot in modern French history, erupted in Clichy-sous-Bois on a night in 2005. By the presentation of the two projects The Living and the Dead Ensemble constructs a singular and mysterious narrative, that bears witness to Haiti’s cultural richness and its poetic forces.

See also : Ouvertures
 

Confronted with the SARS-CoV-2 crisis, we had to cancel this project