Overview:
Jacmel marked its 327th anniversary with a month stuffed with actions, together with parades, dance performances, and a tribute to Caribbean literature and identification. The occasion additionally coincided with a two-day cultural competition, the inaugural Strolling Islands Pageant, a gathering of artists, poets, musicians reflecting on reminiscence, creativity and shared heritage.
JACMEL — Poetry, music, masks and reminiscence lit up Haiti’s Jacmel because the historic and southeastern port metropolis marked its 327th anniversary with two days of cultural celebration below the theme: Jacmel, a metropolis, a historical past.
The festivities started on July 27, with a seashore competition on La Saline, adopted by a thanksgiving mass at Notre-Dame de la Vierge chapel attended by native leaders and metropolis dignitaries. A colourful parade of masked teams and marching bands animated Jacmel’s streets, as residents gathered to honor the southeast coast metropolis’s creative heritage.
On Monday night, the celebration culminated with a cultural showcase on the vacationer port, the place conventional dance troupes and musical ensembles delivered a high-energy efficiency.
Folks fill the streets in celebration of town’s founding through the masquerade parade on July 28, 2025. Photograph courtesy of the Departmental Directorate of the Ministry of Tourism.
However the two-day occasion’s anniversary was only one a part of a month wealthy in cultural exercise.
From July 18 to twenty, Jacmel hosted the primary version of the Strolling Islands Pageant (FIM), a singular creative gathering devoted to reminiscence, poetry and dialogue. Held in artistic areas throughout town, FIM invited artists and writers to replicate on the Caribbean islands’ widespread identification, shared histories and the function of artwork in shaping the longer term.
On July 19, town became a vibrant house for trade, reflection and discovery. Phrases took form, concepts bloomed and responses emerged as author Inéma Jeudi, the competition’s visitor of honor, introduced a serious work as a part of the Made in Kay Vwazen sequence. Alongside Ernst Dimitry Cadet and Derby Stanley St. Fleur, Jeudi took half in a dialog that explored reminiscence as compass and rootedness as resistance.
All through the day, voices like Jhonny Vyles, Ar Guens Jean Mary, Richardson Jean, Max Renaud Lubin and Wilson Edmond—generally known as Ti Lanp—led a poetic dialogue on insularity and the visceral bond between artist and territory. The day closed with a roundtable on plural reminiscences and Caribbean historic unity, that includes contributions from Guillaume Robillard, Carlos Dimeo, Miguel Ángel Fornerín, Kesler Bien-Aimé, Gino Sitson, Leticia Franqui Rosario and Marie Séguin.
The competition wrapped July 20 with an evening of reside Caribbean jazz, as Darlin Johancy Michel, Gougou Zachary Compère, Edner Roméus, Stanley Gué, Richecard Ciné and others carried out in entrance of a packed crowd. Mixing conventional rhythms with improvisation, the occasion underscored Jacmel’s fame as a artistic capital—one the place music and reminiscence intertwine.
This primary version of FIM strengthened what Jacmel has lengthy demonstrated: that tradition is greater than celebration—it’s collective reminiscence in movement.
Listed below are photographs sharing a glimpse of the colourful cultural celebrations in Jacmel throughout its 327th anniversary and the inaugural Strolling Islands Pageant
