The Follow Jah walking band will leave Haiti on April 28 for a European tour (Belgium, France, the Netherlands) which will last a little over a month. This tour is part of the development work that the Caracoli association carries out with the Follow Jah walking band. Since 2010, Caracoli has endeavored to explore and enhance all the potential offered by the rara and the walking bands, through specific support work for the Follow Jah walking band.
Together, they have multiplied the possibilities offered by the format (strolls, static animations or even stage performances) and encounters with other genres, notably jazz (with saxophonist Paul Austerlitz or pianist Laurent de Wilde). At the same time, they worked to improve knowledge of rara music and walking bands by developing an educational workshop on the subject, a workshop which is given regularly in schools, while encouraging several research projects on the genre.
A new stage is now opening with the export of the Follow Jah walking tape internationally.
After a first invitation to the Africolor festival in Paris in 2012, Caracoli is organizing the first European tour of the Follow Jah walking band from April 28 to June 5, 2016. The tour will begin with a performance as part of the “Jazz sous les Pommiers” festival. . It will end with a week in Savoie with presentations in schools, meetings with local brass bands and festival evenings to be hosted, in addition to performances at the Marché des Continents in Chambéry. In the meantime, Follow Jah will also stop at the prestigious “Music Meeting” festival in Nijmegen (the Netherlands) and will spend a few days in residence at the Maison de la Création in Brussels.
The tour schedule is as follows:
April 29 arrival Paris
May 01 Jazz Festival sous les Pommiers, Coutances (FR)
May 9-11 Pontarlier with the association “Louverture for Haiti”
May 12-13 Lille, Dunkirk with the Haitian community in northern France
May 14-15 Festival Music Meeting, Nijmegen (NL)
May 16-20 Residence at the Maison de la Création and activities with the Nouvelle Flibuste, Brussels (B)
21-May Museum Night, Musée des Confluences de Lyon (FR)
24-May Soirée Tropical Discoteq, Paris
25-May Festival les Arts’Viateurs, Orly
May 26-27 Residence Maison de la Création, Brussels (B)
28-May Flower Festival, Watermael-Boitsfort
May 30- June 4 Tour in Savoie – Marché des Continents de Chambéry (FR)
05-June Return to Port-au-Prince
The European tour of the Follow Jah walking band benefits from the support of Wallonie-Bruxelles International as part of the 2015-2017 bilateral cooperation program between the Republic of Haiti and the French Community of Belgium, from the Institut Français (Africa program and Caribbean Creations 2016), the European Union through the PEC (European Program for Culture) and Air France.
She would like to thank the Communication Department of the Ministry of the Interior, Paula Clermont Péan (Pyepoudre Cultural Center), Gary Lubin (Thames), Michel Kazungu (La Nouvelle Flibuste) for their effective contribution to the success of this first tour.
Pascale Jaunay (Caracoli)
