Notes from the Field
Recording in the field is always difficult, but for Rara in Haiti there were serious challenges. First of all, Rara is a moving parade, so equipment has to be easily portable and relatively unobtrusive so as not to intrude on the ritual atmosphere. Recording while walking for miles, sometimes on uneven mountain paths, is a feat of focus and coordination. Moreover, electricity is not regularly available for the majority of the population. All equipment has to be battery operated, and this is most inexpensively done with rechargeable batteries. One has to keep vigilant track of what battery power is left and where the next possible electrical recharge will be. Aside from the regular tasks of fieldwork, then, our team had to forge alliances with “big men” who had inverters, generators, or electric power. Wealthy Vodou societies, hotels and, ironically, supportive Catholic missions, became pit-stops as we walked and danced with the Raras.
Another challenge of recording Rara has to do with its constant movement and its parading form. While the colonel is in front leading with whistle and whip, the drums, banbou, metal horns and percussion (scrapers, bells, etc.) walk in battalion-like waves, one group after the other, followed by the chorus. Because of this spatial configuration it is almost impossible to capture all of the music being produced in any one moment of performance. It is particularly hard to record the instruments and chorus in a balanced fashion. In the best moments, I was able to enter inside a Rara and focus the mic on groups of musicians from the inside. Track four is an example of this sort of recording. Other good times to record were when Rara bands stand together to warm up before they set off on parade. But the most realistic way to hear Rara music is from afar, coming closer, and then passing by, one wave at a time, and slowly fading into the distance.
A related challenge about Rara is that one is with a community in their moment, and there is always commotion. People move around and jostle the mic, just when you perfect your levels and the performance reaches its height, a man in front of you always manages to shout loudly to his friend for a cigarette. Sifting through the recordings to see what to publish always means rejecting some fabulous performances because of interruptions by one thing or another.
The recordings have had two related uses: firstly, I could play and replay them to make sense of aspects of the festival that I could not notice in the moment. Working with Haitian colleagues, I transcribed each tape in order to analyze the lyrics and the music. I was able to have conversations with other Haitian associates about the possible meanings of these songs, and to take them seriously as texts with both historical and contemporary valence. Secondly, the tapes have been used in teaching. Mixed down in the recording studio to discrete tracks, I produced several albums—including the one tracks presented here—so that others can better understand the music.
(Excerpted from Elizabeth McAlister, Rara! Vodou, Power, and Performance. University of California Press, 2002. pp 20-23)