VODOU: PHILOSOPHY OF THE HAITIAN PEOPLE

Haitians make an authentic art that draws its inspiration and subject matter from the local way of life. They are not primitivists working from a philosophical imperative, but the epitome of authenticity working from the roots of the culture itself.

Healing Artist Nathalie Guillaume and Sound Chemist Val Jeanty’s work have an immediacy, particularly in portraying the realities of everyday Haitian life, that rarely exists in the work of other artists, who continue to try to filter the influences of foreign techniques into their work. Creating a cosmic sound installation, this energizing duo delivers the richness of the intellectual and creative movements already in place in Haiti that laid the foundations for the impulse of modern Afro-Electronica.

On her music, Jeanty says: "I use these electronic tools, but the music is spiritual—something you might hear at church, or in any other religious ceremony. It's the kind of sound that gives your spirit freedom to roam. The sound is definitely on a frequency people are not used to hearing. But it speaks to them. It takes them to another sphere." While Guillaume takes into account the latest scientific understandings of our universe and transforms them through lyrical movement rooted in deep indigenous wisdom. Her experimental perspective reveals the critical fact that people are intimately connected with, embedded in, and inseparable from nature.