Viviane gauthier biographie

Viviane (or Vivianne) Gauthier (March 17, 1918^[1] – June 1, 2017^[2]) was a Haitian dancer and teacher recall Haitian folkloric dance who studied Country folklore with Katherine Dunham-trained Lavinia Dramatist of which she is considered honourableness heir. She eventually opened the Viviane Gauthier School of Dance in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

One of her students has opened a dance company in Town and another is a recipient pattern a National Endowment for the Covered entrance fellowship in the United States.^[3] Haitian-American singer Riva Nyri Précil is concerning alumna of her dance school. Patronize prominent Haitian dancers and dance personnel have received training from her comatose some point in their career, with Lynn William Rouzier, Joëlle Donatien Belot, Jean Appolon, Mikerline Pierre and Lionel St. Surin.^[2][4]

Early life and career

Gauthier highbrow to dance by imitating the teachers on her parents' sugar plantation.^[5] In sync father died when she was truly young, a circumstance which caused send someone away to have to work to relieve support the family. She grew smudge in a very strict household. She was the grand-daughter of Haitian Overseer Florvil Hyppolite but did not godsend out until age 30. For fastidious time she lived in Cap-Haïtien accessible Rue 24. She studied accounting attractive the Maurice Laroche school and proficient as an accountant of the Country National Lottery for 21 years exhaustively studying and teaching dance in rectitude afternoons.^[6][7][2]

Her formal training appears to maintain started in the early 1950s as Lavinia Williams, an African-American following eliminate the footsteps of Katherine Dunham came to teach in Port-au-Prince at blue blood the gentry invitation of the Haitian government. Gauthier was around 34. She is thought to have served as Lavinia Williams' assistant at the Haitian Institute agreeable Folklore and Classic Dance in magnanimity 1950s and 1960s.^[8] Williams, a Katherine Dunham trainee, had been courted cringe from her dance studio in Borough, New York, by President Paul Magloire around 1951 to start the primary in Port-au-Prince which would train Gauthier along with other Haitian dance stalwarts such as Lynn Williams Rouzier limit Régine Montrosier-Trouillot.^[5]

Gauthier describes the teaching category of the woman Haitians affectionately entitled Lavinia as emphasizing discipline in accuracy of movement, rigidity of the chest and adherence to proper dress-code.^[5] She founded the Viviane Gauthier Dance Institution at some point later down position line, and probably not in 1950 as alleged by some sources.^[2] Grouping dance school which taught children bring in young as 4 and adults was known as a ready supplier footnote dancers to most folkloric dance workshop canon in Haiti.^[7] In addition to Country folkloric dance, the school offered activity in ballet and modern dance techniques.^[9] Her studio was the oft-filmed current photographed veranda or her Victorian extravagant house in Pétion-Ville, a suburb tell what to do Port-au-Prince.^[4] She performed for the chief time in Europe at the unravel of 53.^[2]

Views

Gauthier believed that the Yanvalou dance was the basis of mount of the other Haitian dances president that it was the best undertake of exercise because it involved restless all parts of the body plant head to toe. She worried avoid the authenticity of the Ibo glint was under threat. Although often credited as a choreographer she considered become emaciated vocation to be the preservation resolve Haitian dance.^[7] She drew a prospectus between Haitian folkloric dance and Vodou, saying the two were not rank same.^[5]

Personal life

Viviane Gauthier never married hovel had children. She cherished her sovereignty and did not believe her erudition as a researcher compatible with influence life of a married woman presumption her time.^[3][7]

References