Makandal Rehearses at Hunter College 1 March 1991
Channel: The Frisner Augustin Memorial Archive
Date: 2018-12-21

From 1983 into the 1990s Makandal held a drumming workshop and rehearsed afterward in a recital room of the Hunter College Music Department, Room 1527 Hunter North. During the '90s the company moved to various other venues until it settled by 1996 in the Department's Brecher Hall. Makandal agreed with the Department of Music to teach Hunter students free of charge in exchange for rehearsal space. This video is a recording of a rehearsal.

In early 1991 the company benefitted from the presence of master dancer Pierre Desrameaux in New York. He led dancers through the movements of classic Afro-Haitian dances and worked with them on choreography. Makandal dancers participated along with people associated with the company and drumming students who stayed on to watch the rehearsal. This rehearsal opened with a warmup led by Nicole Attaway. With Desrameaux the company then worked on the dances yanvalou, nago, zepòl, dawomen, ibo, petwo, kita, yanvalou Gede, and banda, in that order. The company then broke to toast Frisner on the occasion of his forty-third birthday (note table with refreshments to the right of the drummers). They ended rehearsing the dance batonis, a traditional stick dance that Carnival and Rara groups perform.

Makandal drummers were, from the left, Frisner Augustin, Steve Deats, Jean Alphonse, and Paul Newman, and company dancers Nicole Attaway, Rose Deats, and Smith Destin were present.

Source identifier: MAK_LW_REH.018_0001mi_ma_19910301
Creator: Lois Wilcken
Rights: Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0
Date: 1 March 1991
Source format: Video 8 cassette
Language: English and Haitian Creole