Overview:
Weekly dance periods in Cap-Haïtien purpose to maintain the konpa’s attraction whilst new genres of music and motion flood Haiti’s streets and social channels. Lakay Restaurant is without doubt one of the locations to expertise konpa music’s signature beats and the responding hip actions and practiced steps that draw dancers whilst new genres flood Haiti’s streets and socials.
CAP-HAÏTIEN — Scroll on social media or step into the streets round any college, and also you’re prone to be hit with some amusing, flashy, fascinating dance strikes. There’s the one the place teenagers hop round like they’re leaping ropes, konda, and one other involving a lot of twisting one foot ahead, zobeky.
Such actions could give the impression that commonplace konpa — Haiti’s body-to-body, eye-to-eye, hand-to-hand actions ripe for gouyad — could also be supplanted. However that’s removed from the case in venues resembling Lakay Restaurant, an eatery and bar with an outside dance patio and seating. On Thursday nights, particularly, when the proprietor supplies dance instruction, it’s clear that konpa will not be going anyplace.
“It’s our dance,” exclaimed Godson Costumé, the proprietor of Household Artwork Company, a dance and modeling company, on a latest Thursday earlier than patrons arrived for the weekly konpa get together.
“Whenever you’re dancing konpa, you are feeling such as you’ve discovered your self. It’s in our blood,” he elaborated. “You transmit feelings nonetheless you need, you transmit happiness, love, vibe.”
But many Haitians of previous generations usually lament that bal, the place {couples} in formal apparel dance as companions, are being changed by concert events the place children leap up and round. To quench this thirst to understand konpa, dance lecturers like Costumé have taken on the problem of preserving the standard dance. Often called “Le Français” round city, Costumé holds two dance nights – the one at Lakay each Thursday evening and one other at Cap Deli each Saturday. Attendees sway to a wide range of music, together with merengue and salsa, however the primary occasion is the konpa every evening as a result of it’s Haiti’s dance.
“We see that the Europeans, different nations, wish to snatch it from us. They’re dancing it loads,” he remarked. “In Haiti, it’s our identification, although we don’t worth it sufficient. My aim is to carry konpa dance to all the Haitian group.”
Credit: Video by Onz Chéry
Credit: Video by Onz Chéry
Going by the feelings transmitted on the dance ground that Thursday night at Lakay, Costumé’s work is way appreciated by the patrons. For every tune, males walked to the ladies seated at tables across the patio to decide on a companion, then accompanied them to the dance ground.
All through the night, because the konpa songs performed, individuals owned the dances, their passions matching their familiarity. {Couples} locked eyes with candy seems and pressed tightly onto one another at instances. At instances, the ladies smiled and twirled like fairy story princesses as their companions moved them. At others, they twisted their waists to the rhythm underneath the evening sky and dim lights of the venue.
Altogether, the evening appeared that konpa stays alive, able to be loved as individuals transfer by means of the ages.
