Introduction

Abstract

Katherine Dunham and Maya Deren embarked on similar journeys of discovery and scholarly research in their travels to Haiti during the 1930s and 1940s. Each of their travels led to a careful study and subsequent writings about the relationship between the dances of Haiti and the somatic experience of bodies that dance. Moreover, as argued by Dunham and Deren in their respective Haitian ethnographic studies, the somatic experience itself cannot be disassociated from the memory of Haitian history, starting with the human traffic of bodies in the geographical passage from Africa to the Caribbean, the memory of prior African rites and rituals enacted through dance and movement, and finally, the collective spirit of worship through Vodou¹ as a danced form. These body-mind associations are also mediated by the human power of invention, strategies of survival, and belief in the power of the collective. This power fueled the Haitian Revolution and led Haiti to be the first free black republic of America.