In the spirit of the season: Notes on Rara

Rara Band in Gonaives

The phenomenon of Rara is particularly creative and is both fun and profound.  It is at once a season, a festival, a genre of music, a religious ritual, a form of dance, and sometimes a technique of political protest. [1] Rara is a parading, musical festival that typically happens right after Carnival ends, continuing for all the six weeks of Lent, and climaxing on Easter week—especially on Easter Sunday and Easter Monday [2] … Occurring in multiple localities, Rara represents the largest popular gatherings of Haitian people. Groups numbering from fifteen to several thousand people play drums and bamboo horns, dance along the roads, and stop traffic for miles in order to perform rituals for Vodou deities at crossroads, bridges, and cemeteries. Rara can be read as an annual ritual period when the religious work of Vodou is taken into public space. In this sense, Rara is a peripheral branch of this Afro-Haitian religion—a fluid, inherited, oral tradition of relationships with deities from various African societies, as well as relationships with ancestors. [3]

-Elizabeth McAlister, Professor of Religion at Wesleyan University and author of Rara!

Rara is perhaps one of the lesser known genres of Haitian music among the New York City diaspora circuit, as its purpose pertains more to political and social expression than it does to entertainment for entertainment’s sake. Although there’s a chance you might stumble upon a Rara procession around the right corner in Brooklyn during the time of Lent, it isn’t the type of music regularly showcased in NYC clubs like SOB’s and Le Poisson Rouge. For the most part, Rara stays out of the spotlight of pop culture–however, the outpouring of earthquake relief efforts and benefit recordings has allowed opportunities for even the lesser known aspects of Haitian culture to be appreciated by mass audiences. In this clip, Wyclef Jean begins with a reggae tribute to Haiti that quickly gives way to a celebratory Rara jam:

More explanation about Rara instrumentation–evidenced in the video above–written by Elizabeth McAlister, our resident Rara expert:

During Rara, often a Vodou society will form a kind of subgroup within it sending out musicians, drummers, and a chorus of women called queens. Musicians play drums, sing, and sound bamboo horns and tin trumpets.  These horns—vaksin—create the distinctive sound of the Rara.  Each player plays one note, in a technique called hocketing, and together the band comes up with a melody. [ The vaksin are made of bamboo that is cut to particular lengths in order to achieve particular tones. A short bamboo produces a very high tone and a long bamboo produces a very low tone. Each instrument player plays one note. So, if I’m playing “higher note” and you’re playing “lower note,” we get in a circle with a bunch of other musicians and we figure out a particular rhythm to a melody. Then we start walking through the countryside, collecting money from people that we entertain, and it’s wonderful fun.

Sadly, this year’s Rara celebration has been eclipsed by grief and mourning in the aftermath of January’s devastating earthquakes. But some musicians who would have played the carnival, such as the band Kreyol La, have taken the time to instead record their own songs relating to the disaster and are now seeing radio airplay and popular adoption of their contributions around Port-au-Prince.

Relief Efforts

[Live Performance of “Stranded (Haiti Mon Amour)” – performed live at the Hope For Haiti benefit by Jay-Z, Bono, Edge, & Rihanna]

Since the earthquake of January 12th, the international community has made considerable efforts to aid in disaster relief. With an estimated 200,000 killed and 1 million homeless in Port-au-Prince alone, Haiti will need a great deal of support to recover. If you are interested in helping the cause, please visit my donation page.

As shown above, last Friday’s Hope For Haiti telethon included a slew of celebrities pitching in to perform and drive donations. Organized by George Clooney and Wyclef Jean, the event was broadcast commercial-free on dozens of networks, reaching an estimated 83 million viewers and raising upwards of $61 million.

Apart from the benefit, many entertainers have come forward independently to make donations… Britney Spears is auctioning off a prized dress; Diddy’s son gave up his $10,000 Sweet 16 check; and Radiohead raised almost $600,000 auctioning tickets for a benefit show, to name just a few.

The United States government has sent nearly $184 million and more than 15,000 troops, but has faced considerable criticism for an inadequate response. A trauma surgeon named Soumitra Eachempati was among the first relief groups to travel to Haiti almost immediately after the quake. In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, she describes in an editorial how poorly coordinated the relief effort was upon her team’s arrival. Italy’s disaster chief also came forward yesterday, accusing aid groups of  “putting on a vanity show for the television cameras instead of rolling up their sleeves…”

I’m going to give our government the benefit of the doubt on this one. While the U.S. has historically been shady in their dealings with Haiti — with multiple military occupations and political interference — I think Obama has a chance to turn over a new leaf here. And from what I can tell, the administration seems to be doing the best they can.

The President will be delivering his first State of the Union address tomorrow night (Wednesday) at 9PM EST. After the broadcast, he will follow up by answering citizens’ questions via YouTube — marking the first time in history that U.S. citizens are able to respond directly to the address and have their follow-up questions answered. It remains to be seen if the situation in Haiti will be discussed in the address, but I would be surprised if it doesn’t at least see some coverage in the follow-up discussion.