In Lois Wilcken’s article, “The Sacred Music and Dance of Haitian Vodou from Temple to Stage and the Ethics of Representation”, Wilcken talks about the common misconceptions about vodou in the Haitian culture. He talks about its history, how it developed, and how it helped the Haitian community escape from oppressive authorities. In the first couple of pages, Wilcken explains that the first misconception that most people have about vodou is that people dance insensibly to calm the fears they have about their environment. They just “pretend to dance” (Wilcken 193) to quell their fears and the mysterious cult in their society. However, upon deeper analysis, one can see that vodou, the dances and its rituals, were all ways in which people were able to “escape the vigilance of the authorities” (Wilcken 193) and to question those in power.
In these same pages, Wilcken explains the preparation and the main focus that goes into vodou. Vodou revolves around dancing. Preparation would consist of the whole day and include the following: animal sacrifices, magic diagrams on the floor, dressing the altar, and having planned activities for the guests for the whole day. The drums help drive the vodou dance as they dance for a long time.
When the United States took over Haiti, many journalists misrepresented vodou as zombie-like. Many movies produced in the U.S. made Haiti seem like they needed the help from the U.S. to solve “the problems caused by its own ignorance and superstition” (Wilcken 199). The term “voodoo” was coined from this misrepresentation. Many vodou performance groups formed and went to the U.S. in an attempt to escape the oppressive Duvalier regime. It also became an economic profit from tourism, for tourists would come to the islands and watch how the “real vodou” was done because the rituals and practices of vodou were traditionally passed on to each generation orally. These also caused foreign communities to develop different ideas about vodou because many of these groups would just enact the main vodou ceremony without explaining what was going on. These performances would last a couple of hours so many of the day long rituals could not be shown.
A group of teenagers in a poor part of Haiti experimented with their own sort of vodou and folklore, forming a performance group called Makandal. They earned a free passageway to NYC and become one of the most popular groups on the scene. Makandal features daring maneuvers, from fire handling to piercing the skin. New members started to join the group as the old members split apart and one of them died.
An interesting thing to note is that many of Haitians have kept certain vodou rituals a secret from outsiders and foreigners. Many priests would urge the performance groups in NY to not show all of the vodou dances because the foreigners didn’t need to see it all. Many of these groups had to adjust to the new technologies and the new audience members in NY.
Overall, many people from different societies have viewed vodou in puzzling and negative connotations. There is the constant struggle for performance groups to protect some of the hidden vodou rituals and there is the struggle to explain what vodou really means for Haitians to the foreigners. These vodou performances continue to challenge “asymmetries of power” (Wilcken 207) as they bring revolution to Haiti and the foreigners.
