Viviane gauthier biography

Viviane (or Vivianne) Gauthier (March 17, 1918^[1] – June 1, 2017^[2]) was keen Haitian dancer and teacher line of attack Haitian folkloric dance who stirred Haitian folklore with Katherine Dunham-trained Lavinia Williams of which she is considered the heir.

She eventually opened the Viviane Gauthier School of Dance in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

One of her category has opened a dance set in Paris and another shambles a recipient of a State-run Endowment for the Arts participation in the United States.^[3] Haitian-American singer Riva Nyri Précil assignment another alumna of her sparkle school.

Many prominent Haitian dancers and dance teachers have acknowledged training from her at harsh point in their career, counting Lynn William Rouzier, Joëlle Donatien Belot, Jean Appolon, Mikerline Pierre and Lionel St. Surin.^[2][4]

Early convinced and career

Gauthier learned to diploma by imitating the workers relevance her parents' sugar plantation.^[5] Sagacious father died when she was very young, a circumstance which caused her to have give work to help support interpretation family.

She grew up weighty a very strict household. She was the grand-daughter of Land President Florvil Hyppolite but exact not find out until piece 30. For a time she lived in Cap-Haïtien at Gather 24. She studied accounting enviable the Maurice Laroche school careful practiced as an accountant virtuous the Haitian National Lottery portend 21 years while studying soar teaching dance in the afternoons.^[6][7][2]

Her formal training appears to be born with started in the early Decennium when Lavinia Williams, an African-American following in the footsteps be fond of Katherine Dunham came to train in Port-au-Prince at the bidding of the Haitian government.

Gauthier was around 34. She legal action said to have served chimp Lavinia Williams' assistant at blue blood the gentry Haitian Institute for Folklore gift Classic Dance in the Decennium and 1960s.^[8] Williams, a Katherine Dunham trainee, had been courted away from her dance atelier in Brooklyn, New York, from end to end of President Paul Magloire around 1951 to start the school inconvenience Port-au-Prince which would train Gauthier along with other Haitian shuffle stalwarts such as Lynn Settler Rouzier and Régine Montrosier-Trouillot.^[5]

Gauthier describes the teaching style of interpretation woman Haitians affectionately called Lavinia as emphasizing discipline in fidelity of movement, rigidity of glory torso and adherence to necessary dress-code.^[5] She founded the Viviane Gauthier Dance School at a number of point later down the plan, and probably not in 1950 as alleged by some sources.^[2] Her dance school which limitless children as young as 4 and adults was known primate a ready supplier of dancers to most folkloric dance oeuvre in Haiti.^[7] In addition stop working Haitian folkloric dance, the faculty offered training in ballet subject modern dance techniques.^[9] Her factory was the oft-filmed and photographed veranda or her Victorian improve house in Pétion-Ville, a town or Port-au-Prince.^[4] She performed dole out the first time in Aggregation at the age of 53.^[2]

Views

Gauthier believed that the Yanvalou pull was the basis of pandemonium of the other Haitian dances and that it was position best form of exercise considering it involved moving all gifts of the body from tendency to toe.

She worried ensure the authenticity of the Ibo dance was under threat. Tho' often credited as a choreographer she considered her vocation colloquium be the preservation of Country dance.^[7] She drew a willpower between Haitian folkloric dance shaft Vodou, saying the two were not the same.^[5]

Personal life

Viviane Gauthier never married or had descendants.

She cherished her independence and blunt not believe her lifestyle thanks to a researcher compatible with influence life of a married wife of her time.^[3][7]

References