Fête de la Musique brings Pétion-Ville back to its feet

For one evening in Pétion-Ville, the only thing louder than the city’s worries was the music.

On June 21, the French Institute in Haiti brought the Fête de la Musique to the Brazilian Cultural Center, a courtyard packed shoulder to shoulder for a celebration that much of the capital assumed could no longer happen.

Motif Mizik opened the evening weaving Haitian and Brazilian songbooks together; Family Groove Band kept the floor moving until the end. The audience, students, families, artists, danced like the night depended on it.

Gatherings like this are not an escape from the country’s reality; they are part of it. Every song played in public is a claim on ordinary life, and on the nights Haiti intends to have again.