Kanaval in All of Our Dreams

Each year Jacmel celebrates his own version of pre-Lenten Mardi Gras festivities. Groups of performers and individual characters act out their passed down mythological, political and historical tales and personas. There is a strong sense that these stories belong more to the character and to the tradition that to the actual masquerader. They remain firmly entrenched in a fantasy realm that has been created by many but is owned by nobody. Haitian Kanaval reflects the pervasive syncretisism of Haitian culture, which is not a harmonic fusion, but rather a mixture of multiple components in constant dialogue. The quaint seaside town of Jacmel is in a firm grip of its Kanaval . The streets are becoming a stage for spontaneous street theater and organised parades at the same time. The home-grown surrealism, full of poetic metaphors finds its inspiration in vodou, ancestral memory, history and the current politics. There is an attempt by the Ministry of Tourism to make the Kanaval glitzier, more colourful – a sort of Rio-isation - mainly to make it more attractive for the annual influx of tourists of the Haitian diaspora.