Dance Research Within the Context of the Work of Maud Robart

Abstract

The first time I heard Robart singing was more than twenty years ago. We were a small group of people in a large hall, dancing yanvalou and chanting ritual Haitian songs somewhere in Tuscany, Italy. She was leading both the dance and the chants. Her singing had a very particular quality. It felt very familiar, as if I had heard the song a long time before. But when I examined my conscious memories, I realized that in my past there was nothing similar to it. Her voice evoked in me landscapes of Veracruz, Mexico, the land where my father was born. Her singing seemed wild and innocent, and it touched my heart as if it was a key trying to open a door to a secret buried in me.