Welcome to Makandal

M te rete nan dèyè simityè, nan Ri Flèry Batye. Ou konprann? M te rete nan mitan dèyè simityè a. M te rete nan mitan katye a.

I lived behind the cemetery, on Rue Fleury Bathier. You understand? I lived right in the middle of “behind the cemetery.” I lived in the heart of the community.

(Frisner Augustin in an interview with Lois Wilcken, August 15, 1994, Brooklyn)

Behind the cemetery… In the geography of a city, town, or village, it’s simply a position along the back border of a cemetery. But it’s tempting to imagine other strange and metaphysical meanings, like fourth-dimensional spacetime, limbo, or the veiled anba dlo (under the water) of Haitian Vodou. Indeed, the deep culture of the cemetery disperses beyond its walls, and when Frisner was a child, the cemetery didn’t even have walls. You were never really “behind.” Continue reading →

She’s a coquette, a spirit woman reportedly of fair complexion, although she’s been known to inhabit every hue. When she leaves the luster and magic of Ginen to take possession of a human medium—to the heartbeat of drums, the sweet meander of melody, the seductive sway of dancing bodies—she fixes her wide and tender eyes only on the men. She’s vulnerable and prone to weep, but when you serve her with all your heart, she responds in kind with the nurturing power of love. Èzili… Continue reading →

January 24, 1981. At last! I’ve gone to my first Voodoo [sic] ceremony….I met Frisner and Ken in the building Frisner used to live in in Manhattan….Ken had a pair of claves for me to use during the ceremony. I was to beat the bell pattern to any songs that I knew the bell part for. We got into Frisner’s car and drove up to the Bronx.

February 14, 1981. I went to two ceremonies tonight. The first was in a Brooklyn basement, and I went with Frisner and Bonnie. It was quiet, partly because they didn’t want drumming. Apparently they’d consulted a spirit about this….The second was actually in a Manhattan apartment! On West 98 Street….During one of the songs, a spirit came down—practically in my lap. I got a good whack across the bridge of my nose, and Frisner’s drumming was interrupted when the guy fell over on the drum. My tape recorder slid off my lap, but I quickly rescued it. No harm done. I have a nice tape now, and my nose doesn’t seem to be broken. Continue reading →

Any other time, the rain twinkling like Christmas lights across the windshield would have enchanted me. Now, as we rode uptown toward Manhattan’s Columbia University, the image warned of trouble. Ten of us had crammed into Frisner’s green mini-van for a gig at the University. Numbering fifteen in all, we needed another vehicle, so drummer and flutist Luc Richard offered to take four others in his car. I had given Frisner a copy of the program, which named the venue—the International Affairs Building (IAB)—and I assumed he’d passed the information on to Richard. Never assume! I just learned that Richard’s only instruction was to follow us. All he knew about the venue was “Columbia University.” I thought about the Morningside Campus, whose four-dozen or so buildings occupy more than six city blocks, and I thought about the blur of the streetscape seen through wet glass. What if Richard loses us? The mobile phone was science fiction in 1983. If only we could stop the rain. If only we had that one Haitian worm! Continue reading →

The young artists fell into a philosophical tug-of-war with the recording engineer. Harry Leroy already boasted a history of recording some of the best Haitian musicians around. He knew his business. The artists of La Troupe Makandal, on the other hand, had little or no studio experience—even Frisner Augustin, a nine-year veteran of the Diaspora who had taken on direction of the newly arrived Troupe three months ago in October 1981. The eight musicians and dancers, now relocated under Frisner’s wing, knew little about tracks and mixing, but they did know their own business: dancing, drumming, and singing to bring down the spirit. Such a mystical undertaking demands the networked physical and psychic energies of a collective. Leroy wanted to record individuals, or small sub-groups one by one, recording each of many tracks separately and then mixing later on. In other words, he wanted to break up the collective. But without the collective, what happens to the spirit? Continue reading →

The subway ride to the Bronx felt endless. I usually rode to the house in Morris Heights with Frisner, but his van had gone ahead of me four days earlier. Since then it was marking time and waiting for its owner outside Kay Mano: the home of Mano Cadet. A small chamber within the bosom of the house now held Frisner in seclusion, leaving me to ponder the mysteries of Vodou from the outside. Now, I passed the time on the number 4 train chatting with photographer Chantal Regnault about the coming-out party we were about to document. For some reckless reason, I had placed a tote bag on the floor at my feet. The subway doors opened a few stops before ours; the man sitting across from me seized his opportunity. Out he went with my tote, just a microsecond before the doors closed. Bummer! But the good news was that my little audio recorder was not in that bag. I could still capture the exuberant sounds of Frisner’s initiation party. Did anything else matter? Continue reading →

West Indian Carnival was probably the farthest thing from the minds of Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux when they designed the world’s first parkway: Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. At work on Prospect Park at the same time (circa 1866), they hoped to connect the Park with other green spaces in the borough. The West Indian Day Parade (established in Manhattan’s Harlem in 1947 by Trinidadians who settled there) relocated to the Crown Heights stretch of Eastern Parkway in 1969. In 1990 Trinidadians still managed the parade, but it was open to just about anyone who wanted to jump into the melee. Really! What would Olmstead and Vaux have thought of connecting those green spaces with singing steel pans, a kaleidoscope of dancing butterflies and Indians, and unabashed soca whining? To which Makandal would add its Haitian gouyad… Continue reading →