Like a lot of people who visit Haiti, I have become involved in a long-term relationship with the country. I was fascinated immediately with its culture—especially the music, religion and art of everyday people. I would like to start a new cliché about Haiti: instead of its being known as “the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere,” I think it should be considered “one of the culturally richest countries in the Western Hemisphere.” I have researched and learned a little bit about the vibrant culture of Haiti, and published a book on the Rara festivals, Rara! Vodou, Power and Performance in Haiti and its Diaspora, plus several albums and articles.
View Professor McAlister’s website on Rara: http://rara.wesleyan.edu/
Roundtable for The New Yorker on Haitian Music, with Elizabeth McAlister, Edwidge Danticat, Garnette Cadogan, Laurent Dubois, Madison Smartt Bell, and Ned Sublette
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sashafrerejones/2009/03/roundtable-hait.html
Listen to Professor McAlister’s interview on NPR : Fresh Air with Terry Gross.
In 1996, Terri Gross invited Elizabeth McAlister to be a guest on Fresh Air to discuss “Rhythms of Rapture,” the album of Haitian religious music that McAlister compiled for Smithsonian Folkways. They talked about life in Haiti in 1993 during the coup d’etat against Jean-Bertrand Aristide, about Vodou music, and about getting to know a culture through its music.
Elizabeth McAlister featured in New York Times,January 19th, 2003 pg. 14CN.13
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Music and the Story of Haiti
An episode of Afropop Worldwide
(Produced by public radio’s Afropop Worldwide and Elizabeth McAlister. For more information please see http://www.afropop.org/multi/interview/ID/120/Elizabeth+McAlister+2007.
Abbreviated version (6 minutes):
Complete program (1 hour):
If the embedded players do not work, try clicking these text links for the 6-minute or one-hour versions.
From Vodou to Compas to Racine to Rara and Beyond: Haiti became the first black-ruled republic in the Americas in 1804, and music has mirrored, and at times shaped, the twists and turns of Haiti’s politics and culture ever since. A primary source of Haitian culture is Dahomey, the birthplace of vodou–the most commonly held world view among Haitian people today. We explore how each of Haiti’s rulers has championed his own preferred music. The Duvalier dictators favored compas dance music, and suppressed the most African-identified cultural expressions. When Baby Doc was run out of the country in 1986, African-derived racine, or roots, music exploded. Elizabeth McAlister, professor of religion at Wesleyan University, and several community scholars–and Holly Nicolas–interweave music and history to tell a dynamic, and at times heart-breaking story. Included in the mix we’ll hear the sweet sound of troubadour balladeers, as well as the exuberant tones of rara bands, the call and response of a capela kombit songs of work parties, impassioned choral music of evangelical churches, and the sophisticated, improvisational rhythms used in vodou rituals.
Roundtable: Haitian Music, Part 2: “What Does Revolution Sound Like?”
The New Yorker July 13, 2009
Listen to Prof. McAlister on The Colin McEnroe Show on Connecticut Public Radio September 10, 2009.
http://www.cpbn.org/program/colin-mcenroe-show/episode/cms-hatian-vodou-and-zombies-too
