Skip to main content

Caribbean Revels: Haitian Rara and Dominican Gaga

Various Artists
Caribbean Revels: Haitian Rara and Dominican Gaga

Throughout the week before Easter, roads all over Haiti swell with bands of revelers, dancers, singers and percussionists, travelling from vodou temples to their villages. Rara and gaga are wildly festive sounds, featuring unusual percussion and wind instruments, and often bawdy lyrics. These remastered recordings from the streets, plazas and cemeteries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic are accompanied by extensive notes by Verna Gillis and Gage Averill. Reissue of Folkways 4531.

"Rara es el nombre dado a la celebración rural que tiene lugar cada año en Haití entre el miércoles de ceniza y el domingo de pascua. La selección presentada aquí representa la variedad de música vocal e instrumental que acompaña la danza, las piruetas con bastones y las actividades rituales llevadas a cabo durante el rara por hombres, mujeres y niños vestidos con brillantes colores. La palabra gaga es usada en República Dominicana por los haitianos que practican sus propias celebraciones de rara; la palabra es un término criollo que se aplica a alguien que no se considera esté en un estado mental 'normal'..."

Track Listing

icon-circle-play svg-new-pause-button
101
Louis Jacques
02:15
icon-circle-play svg-new-pause-button
102
Davilmar Vilma
05:09
icon-circle-play svg-new-pause-button
103
Rara band, Haiti
05:19
icon-circle-play svg-new-pause-button
104
Rara band, Haiti
06:55
icon-circle-play svg-new-pause-button
105
Pierrre Potau Thelemaque
09:38
icon-circle-play svg-new-pause-button
106
Louis Jacques
13:39
icon-circle-play svg-new-pause-button
107
Pierrre Potau Thelemaque
07:38
icon-circle-play svg-new-pause-button
201
Gaga band, Dominican Republic
02:01
icon-circle-play svg-new-pause-button
202
Gaga band, Dominican Republic
06:06
icon-circle-play svg-new-pause-button
203
Gaga band, Dominican Republic
05:48
icon-circle-play svg-new-pause-button
204
Haitian-Dominican Gaga band
01:48
icon-circle-play svg-new-pause-button
205
Gaga band, Dominican Republic
01:36
icon-circle-play svg-new-pause-button
206
Gaga band, Dominican Republic
02:53
icon-circle-play svg-new-pause-button
207
Gaga band, Dominican Republic
03:07