Halka/Haiti: Performing the Dialogue Between Haitian and Polish Independences.

The Polish Pavilion of the 2015 Venice Biennale presented an operatic performance entitled Halka/Haiti, written by two Polish artists, C.T. Jasper and Joanna Malinowska, and performed by a cast of Polish and Haitian musicians and dancers. This Polish homage to Haiti speaks both to the ways in which...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Contemporary French & Francophone Studies Vol. 29; no. 4; pp. 513 - 526
Autor principal: Limare, Soraya
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Taylor & Francis Ltd Sep2025
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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Sumario:The Polish Pavilion of the 2015 Venice Biennale presented an operatic performance entitled Halka/Haiti, written by two Polish artists, C.T. Jasper and Joanna Malinowska, and performed by a cast of Polish and Haitian musicians and dancers. This Polish homage to Haiti speaks both to the ways in which Poland and Haiti were put in Relation during the Haitian Revolution and to the universal nature of the Haitian Revolution as a symbol of self- acquired freedom and independence. This article examines the process of cultural translation at work in this artistic dialogue between two countries, Haiti and Poland, which are historically and symbolically tied together through their common struggle for independence. Through an analysis of the 2015 performance itself and of its context, as well as of historiographical questions surrounding the involvement of the 5,500 Polish soldiers sent to Saint-Domingue during the war of independence, it interrogates issues of commodification and appropriation of another's history alongside the process of cultural translation that is a testament to the translatability of the Haitian Revolution into other contexts across linguistic, geographical and cultural boundaries.