Overview:
Gros Moteur band’s 96th anniversary united music, ritual, and diaspora delight in Gonaïves.Members of the group recounted the tales of music, neighborhood, and life as they walked in vibrant parades, chanted, and danced to the rhythm of hypnotic beats.
GONAÏVES — On a latest April afternoon, males wearing conventional karabela shirts and alfò or straw hats and girls adorned in lengthy, colourful embroidered clothes and skirts, the Gros Moteur Rara band marked its 96th anniversary within the historic metropolis of Gonaïves, within the Artibonite area.
Based in 1929 within the Souvenance locality, Gros Moteur has grown into one of many metropolis’s most enduring cultural establishments—an emblem of non secular continuity, rural delight, and collective resilience that has carried its legacy for practically a century.
“I’m sacrificing myself in order that the Gros Moteur rara can live on within the Souvenance locality,” mentioned Thony Diogène, the band committee delegate and one among its founding members.
Gros Moteur’s practically a century of existence stands as a robust image in a rustic the place establishments are collapsing. Whereas over time, lots of Haiti’s state constructions battle beneath the load of disaster, this rara band continues to attract folks into the streets—younger and outdated, rural and concrete, native and diaspora—certain collectively by music mixing rhythms like Nago and Congo Dahomé, linking musical kind to ancestral identification.
On April 6, a whole lot, together with kids, from throughout the town, attended this 12 months’s anniversary festivities, drawn by the colourful parades, hypnotic beats, and call-and-response chants echoing by means of the streets resulting in the sacred Lakou Souvennace. There beneath a big tent, members alongside household and supporters of the band sat round a desk adorned with flowers to share a meal and proceed the celebration.
The band’s anniversary day coincided with the nation’s Rara festivities month.
Throughout Haiti’s area, like in Gonaïves, Holy Week, coinciding with the Catholic rituals, marks one of the crucial anticipated instances of the 12 months, because the bann rara or road bands fill the streets every Sunday starting in mid-March. These processions construct to a sacred crescendo throughout Easter Week, when music, motion, and non secular vitality rework lengthy stretches of streets, public squares into residing ceremonies.
Gros Moteur members have their particular cue to sign to members the beginning of their celebration. Members honored what organizers name the “twin spirits” that information the band. In line with Diogène, the group sends out a non secular determine referred to as ‘Courageous’, wearing black and purple, who indicators the beginning of their celebration.
Moreover, as a convention, every Good Friday, Gros Moteur’s members circle the sacred Lakou Souvenance seven instances in a symbolic procession. Then, on the final Palm Sunday that falls within the Rara season, all of them costume solely in white, heeding the non secular instruction handed down by means of a servant of the Lakou Souvenance, Fernand Bien-Aimé, mentioned to be impressed by his deceased father.
“That is what was revealed by his [Fernand] late father, he requested that each final Palm Sunday, we costume in white,” Kénold Diogène, one other chief of the group, mentioned.
The household behind the near-centenary legacy
The longevity of the near-century rara band has come not simply from its exceptional musical act, its rural base, however from members of the Haitian diaspora, lots of whom as soon as marched with the band and now contribute financially to make sure its survival.
Gros Moteur was based by Saurel Diogène —its major founder— alongside Carmelot Diogène and Dieuferne Corvile. The founders invested considerably in devices and construction. Corvile additionally served as “samba,” or lead chant singer, and subsequent committees formed the group’s evolving management.
Right this moment, the Diogène identify stays central to the group, with descendants persevering with to serve and help Gros Moteur, making certain that the group’s non secular and inventive imaginative and prescient endures throughout generations.
“Every time the neighborhood faces issues—even household conflicts—we reply with musical messages that talk to the state of affairs,” mentioned Tony Diogène, musician and composer.
Locals close to Souvenance and round Gonaïves see Gros Moteur as a musical power with deep social roots.
“Gros Moteur offers unforgettable pleasure to its followers and displays the non secular tendencies of our Vodou traditions,” Jean Baptiste Aldajuste, a musician from rival group Vierges Miracle, mentioned, acknowledging the band’s affect in its neighborhood. “The rivalry between the 2 bands, prior to now, had created rigidity between followers, which is widespread and a part of the aggressive spirit that defines Rara.”
Gros Moteur can also be a coaching floor for the youth. By oral custom and mentorship, youthful musicians study devices such because the drum, piston, cymbal, trumpet, and bamboo.
“ I used to be first captivated after watching a rehearsal. From that day, I knew I wished to be a part of the band,” Wilvens Limage, a younger musician who performs the bamboo, a woodwind instrument, mentioned. “Now, every time I play, I really feel that connection.”
“I by no means get bored with performing throughout the Rara season,” Eric Lacaussade, a multi-instrumentalist in Gros Moteur* mentioned.
“The enjoyment of taking part in comes from the vitality of the group. It’s about entertaining the followers and making the spirit of the band shine.”
Anchored in Vodou apply and native spirituality, Gros Moteur’s performances will not be mere leisure—they’re acts of communal reaffirmation, particularly necessary within the locality, the place state help for such a music style stays restricted.
Gros Moteur rara, a cultural inheritance, sustained by diaspora devotion
Traditionally related to the Catholic determine of Saint Jacques, Gros Moteur has additionally weathered political interference. The 96 years of existence of the Gros Moteur group within the Lakou Souvenance neighborhood had been marked by inner divisions, political setbacks, and financial hardship, however the group continues to carry out, to parade, and to cross on its legacy.
Within the Nineties, authorities officers suspended the group following a battle with one other Rara band, Toulimen. After sustained strain from Bien-Aimé—and regardless of opposition from a former military captain—former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide licensed Gros Moteur to renew its cultural actions.
The longevity of the near-century rara band has come not simply from its exceptional musical act, its rural base, however from members of the Haitian diaspora—lots of whom as soon as marched with the band and now contribute financially to make sure its survival.
A lot of Gros Moteur’s fashionable endurance has been supported by Haitians overseas. Many Gonaives natives within the diaspora as soon as performed within the band or have relations who did. Their monetary help—significantly for the 96th anniversary celebrations, has stored the custom alive. Vital funds had been invested in buying musical devices, underscoring the group’s dedication to its craft.
“Every year, we spend over USD 100,000 to offer meals, clothes, and drinks for all members of the Gros Moteur group,” Kénold mentioned , the group’s president.
This 12 months’s celebration was organized with the help of a grandson of one of many founders, Colaba François, whose son contributed considerably to fund meals and apparel for the a whole lot of performers.
“He [Colaba’s son] gave us every little thing we wanted to make this anniversary a hit.”
Its endurance can also be a message to the broader Gonaives neighborhood—together with these within the diaspora—that even amid instability, Haiti’s deepest cultural roots are nonetheless alive and marching.
“Every time the Rara festivities arrive, the spirit of life is reignited within the band,” Thony mentioned.