Liquid Music Artist in Virtual Residence, Nathalie Joachim is in Haiti conducting interviews with pillars of the Haitian musical community and collecting field recordings as inspiration for her new work, Fanm d'Ayiti. Nathalie created a travel diary, shown below, for Liquid Music audiences to join her on this incredible journey.

Today was an absolutely incredible day full of pretty wonderful serendipity. This trip to Haiti has been a bit hard to plan because of a combination of island time and logistics. Nonetheless, I arrived today with a hopeful itinerary in hand. Little did I know that it would all pan out to be an amazingly eventful day, resulting in an exciting tomorrow!

After an early morning flight from NYC (ouch 6am... I need to stop doing that), I landed in Port-au-Prince (PAP), and was greeted at the airport first by a live band and then by my dad, stepmom Yolaine, aunt and step-uncle. It's really awesome to have them all here helping on my quest for music and history in Haiti.

Live band at PAP airport

The plan was to meet my dad’s good friend Jean Joseph Exume (a big time lawyer here in Port-au-Prince), who would hook us up with not only a driver, but the inside scoop on the top 3 things I want to accomplish in PAP:

The plan was to meet my dad’s good friend Jean Joseph Exume (a big time lawyer here in Port-au-Prince), who would hook us up with not only a driver, but the inside scoop on the top 3 things I want to accomplish in PAP:
A visit, interview and archive crawl at Radio Metropole (a major national radio station) run by a guy named Joel Widmaier, whose wife, Milena Sandler is daughter of Toto Bissainthe — you might remember Toto—now deceased—from my earlier blog post aka my muse for this entire project).
A visit and tour (and maybe also an archive crawl) of the National Theater, formerly home of the Theatre de Verdure, which was the home of some of the most iconic performances of my featured female artists, going all the way back to "La Reine Chanterelle" aka Lumane Casimir aka one of the very first famous female singers (more on her later, but see my first blog post for a taste).
A visit to Hotel Olaffson, owned by Richard Morse — founding member of ultra famous Haitian band RAM (like... the Rolling Stones of Haiti) and son of Émerante de Pradines, aka the only famous singer left from Lumane’s time, clocking in 99 years old!

All of this comes at the recommendation of Carole Demesmin (also a featured artist on my list, who I had the most awesome phone call with about a month ago, and who I plan to meet in person in September — all fingers and toes crossed). It's a long and somewhat far fetched list because Carole did a lot of recommending but not a lot of introductions, however… a girl can dream. Especially a slightly crazy, super ambitious New Yorker!

After a quick drive, we land at Exume’s house, and my stepmom (official Fanm d’Ayiti assistant), Exume and our driver James head immediately to Radio Metropole. We get there, tell our story and ask for Joel and Milena. There's a lot of back and forth and some name dropping when the woman at the front desk breaks and gives us Milena’s number. We call, tell our story, drop some more names and… she agrees to meet us at 5pm! WOOT! One mission down… sort of... and two to go. So, we head off to the National Theater.

Drive to Radio Metropole

We arrive there, and it's actually scary at first. The neighborhood is pretty rough and the streets are lined with trash but Carole had described the old amphitheater and the beauty of Theatre de Verdure as once having been surrounded by green rolling hills and the ocean in the distance. I see remnants of it beneath the grit. We walk in, do our name dropping bit and end up getting a personally guided tour of the space from the Artistic Director, Felix Amcito. Felix is a soft-spoken guy who's a bit suspicious of me and my zoom recorder but he is also kind and generous. He says there isn't much going on at the theater today but the first thing we run into is an epic Haitian folkloric dance rehearsal with live drummers (and later a flutist!!!). I record fervently and get left behind as Felix moves onto the next space, which is a rehearsal room where a singing duo is rehearsing a song together and others are gathered around a chalkboard full of music. At this point, I'm glad I've decided to just leave my zoom running as we tour the space because each turn brings new auditory wonders! We see a costume shop, run into a sculpting class taking place outside in the shade (run by two dudes in cute as ever dashikis who ask me about a world famous flutist I've never heard of — must Google), and meet Jean Miché Bellevue: a composer and trumpet player who was meeting with a young violinist and played a midi file of some of his music for me.

Folkloric Dance Rehearsal at Theatre de Verdure

Later, Felix shows us remnants of what was once a sweeping tarp that shielded the entire amphitheater from the sun (destroyed in the 2010 earthquake). He tells us a glorious story about how when Lumane Casimir performed here it was one of the most iconic performances to date — for which she was not paid. In fact she was never paid in her career, but she loved to sing and people loved her, so she continued singing. She actually died living in extreme poverty (we'll unpack that later). He tells us about how the government sought to unify the arts in Haiti, and so changed the name to the National Theater and took control in the 80s... effectively destroying this gorgeous place mostly unintentionally. At this point, I wander into the theater on my own to stand on the very stage these Haitian songstresses performed on. The stage creaks and feels like it will cave in at any moment. I climb to the very top of the amphitheater steps and look out to take in what I know was once an incredible view, now surrounded by slums...it was heavy. But at the same time, I was glad to see so much of the arts still happening in that space. And still being enjoyed by people who simply love what they do.

So Felix wraps up the tour, and I ask daringly about the archives. Do you know what this amazing human turns to me and says? “The best archive we have is our Executive Director, who recently returned for a second term. We can set up a meeting for you. Does tomorrow at 11:30 work?” After picking my jaw up from the floor, I say yes and thank you too many times, and Exume kindly escorts me out to the car so I don't stand there blubbering like an idiot, LOL.

That visit was a WIN. My first real win of the trip, with so much inspiration and so many stories recorded and safely stored to creatively unpack when I get back to NYC because my mind is currently exploding.

But truth be told: my heart sunk when we drove out of the Dream gates into the nightmare streets covered in trash. There was literally a river of it. How did this happen to such a beautiful place?

Our next stop is Hotel Olaffson, where Carole tells me I'm sure to find Émerante, who she assures me is still alive at a reported 99 years old. I tell Yolaine and Exume all of this and they are pretty skeptical... as am I.

We pull up and find yet another folkloric dance camp with live drummers. I record again, knowing that these rhythms and this movement will undoubtedly become part of my piece. When I'm able to pull myself away from the dance area, I turn to find what looks like a huge New Orléans style plantation home. The lawn is peppered with recycled object sculptures and weird vodou deities. It's got a whole lot of quirky character. While Exume is off sweet talking the ladies at the front desk, I can't stop taking pics of the artwork, of the architecture, of the tiling. It’s just... gorgeous. Exume seemingly strikes out with the front desk workers, so we decide to sit out on the veranda and have a glass of fresh passion fruit juice (my favorite!). Sitting there, it feels like we've been transported through time. It's sort of surreal.

Sculpture and voodoo deity garden at Hotel Olaffson

Enjoying passion fruit juice on the porch of Hotel Olaffson

We finish our juices and begin to leave when Exume spots Richard Morse, who it turns out he knows! Richard introduces himself to me, and makes a few quirky jokes. I tell him about the project and he says “you've GOT to talk to my mom. she'll love you!” And tells us to call her assistant and have them make an appointment for us (ps: an assistant at 99?!?!!! Life goals!). So tomorrow morning first thing, we’ll call. The way this day’s going, I believe it will work.

At this point it's 4pm — we've been going strong all day, but we've got to get back to Radio Metropole. I gotta be honest: I figure there's no way Joel and Milena will show up, but they do! They invite us into the studio. They are both kind, but formal. Warm, but reserved. So I tell them about Fanm d’Ayiti and they tell me 4 things:

They wrote a book about Haitian female artists and they want me to have it.
They did an installation with all of these archival photos and interviews with Haitian musicians (male and female) and they want me to experience it.
They would love to give me any archival recordings I need access to.
They would love to invite me to their home in the morning so I can interview Milena about her mom’s life. Remember her mom? Aka Toto Bissainthe? Aka my muse? Aka a legend? Freaking. Out.

So that's that. Not a bad day at all, which admittedly ended with the most AMAZING plate of traditional Haitian food. I don't know how it could be possible to top it today... but tomorrow just might do it... stay tuned!!