Center Stage Blog

On Tuesday, December 13, 2011, Ambassador and Mrs. Kenneth Merten hosted the Center Stage program for Haiti at their residence. In 2012 Center Stage, funded by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and private donors, will bring international artists in dance, music and theater from Haiti, Pakistan, and Indonesia to tour the United States.

Haiti has a wealth of talent in the arts and many performers were eager to participate.  Several groups and individuals auditioned in May 2011 and three were chosen to represent Haiti’s culture in the U.S.:

I grew up in Miami, a city with one of the largest Haitian populations in the US, but I’d never actually been to the country until recently. Over the years, I’d been exposed to a fair amount of Haitian culture, but nothing could prepare me for the experience of touching down in Port-Au-Prince. 

Center Stage^SM Artists Announced
Contemporary ensembles from Haiti, Indonesia and Pakistan
will tour the U.S. in 2012

(Boston, MA – July 12, 2011) Sufi-rock bands from Lahore…a comedy trio from Karachi…master Haitian troubadours…puppetry and Hip Hop collectives from Yogyakarta…power-house contemporary dance companies from Port-au-Prince and Padang…

Jean-René Delsoin's Dance company was magical.  The energy, the talent, the drive.

Port-au-Prince was such a contradiction of experiences.  This amazingly culturally rich city and country, in such an impoverished condition.  The richness of the music, the dance, the art, the food..the rum!  Set in such a struggling setting.

Our Haiti advance trip concluded just over a month ago, and I’m finally writing about it.   Here’s what kicked me into focus:  attending an amazing concert Thursday night in Connecticut, by the “Queen of Haitian Song” (and part of the Center Stage^SM entourage to Haiti) Emeline Michel at New Haven’s International Festival of Arts and Ideas. 

The flight to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, from the sleek, new American Airlines terminal at Miami International is just under two hours - not even enough time to get halfway through Graham Greene's The Comedians (which I was told was the obligatory literary read for any trip to Haiti).  Immediately upon landing in Port-au-Prince, the devastating impact of the 2010 earthquake dominates the landscape.

The Center Stage program was exciting as soon as I heard about it.  As the Director of Arts and Culture at IMAN (Inner-city Muslim Action Network), I have a profound interest in the performing arts from countries like Turkey, Syria, Mali, Senegal, Pakistan, and Indonesia.  The fact that all of these countries were initially considered for Center Stage (in addition to Haiti) made the program compelling even before I was officially involved.  Once I was asked to serve on the Advisory Committee, I felt a deeper connection