{"id":1008,"date":"2013-01-31T16:20:18","date_gmt":"2013-01-31T16:20:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/?p=1008"},"modified":"2013-01-31T16:20:19","modified_gmt":"2013-01-31T16:20:19","slug":"jean-leon-destine-haitian-dancer-and-choreographer-dies-at-94","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/jean-leon-destine-haitian-dancer-and-choreographer-dies-at-94.html","title":{"rendered":"Jean-L\u00e9on Destin\u00e9, Haitian Dancer and Choreographer, Dies at 94"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>In the following <em>New York Times<\/em> article, Margalit Fox reports on the passing of renowned Haitian dancer and choregrapher, Jean-L\u00e9on Destin\u00e9.<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Jean-L\u00e9on Destin\u00e9, a Haitian dancer and choreographer who brought his country\u2019s traditional music and dance to concert stages around the world, died on Jan. 22 at his home in Manhattan. He was 94.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" itemprop=\"url\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/graphics8.nytimes.com\/images\/2013\/01\/30\/arts\/DESTINE-obit\/DESTINE-obit-articleInline.jpg\" width=\"190\" height=\"228\" \/><\/p>\n<p itemprop=\"articleBody\">Considered the father of Haitian professional dance, Mr. Destin\u00e9 first came to international attention in the 1940s and remained prominent for decades afterward.<\/p>\n<p itemprop=\"articleBody\">As a dancer, he performed well into old age. In 2003, reviewing a program at Symphony Space in New York in which he appeared, Anna Kisselgoff wrote in The New York Times that Mr. Destin\u00e9\u2019s number stopped the show. She added, \u201cHe looked agile and nuanced, mesmerizing in a bent-legged solo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p itemprop=\"articleBody\">As a choreographer, he directed own ensemble, which came to be known as the Destin\u00e9 Afro-Haitian Dance Company.<\/p>\n<p itemprop=\"articleBody\">The company, which presented work from throughout the Caribbean, was devoted in particular to dances from Haiti. Accompanied by vibrant drumming \u2014 Mr. Destin\u00e9 collaborated for many years with the distinguished Haitian drummer Alphonse Cimber \u2014 these dances were often infused with elements of voodoo tradition.<\/p>\n<p itemprop=\"articleBody\">As reviewers noted, Mr. Destin\u00e9 and company could dance, to all appearances, as if possessed.<\/p>\n<p itemprop=\"articleBody\">Much of Mr. Destin\u00e9\u2019s work also functioned as commentary on Haiti\u2019s legacy of colonialism and slavery. In \u201cSlave Dance,\u201d a solo piece he choreographed and performed, the dancer begins in bondage only to emerge, in astonished joy, a free man.<\/p>\n<p itemprop=\"articleBody\">In \u201cBal Champ\u00eatre\u201d (\u201cCountry Ball\u201d), among the most famous works choreographed by Mr. Destin\u00e9, the foppish customs of Haiti\u2019s French colonists are satirized through sly subervsions of a Baroque minuet.<\/p>\n<p itemprop=\"articleBody\"><div class='jwplayer' id='jwplayer-0'><\/div><script type='text\/javascript'>if(typeof(jQuery)==\"function\"){(function($){$.fn.fitVids=function(){}})(jQuery)};jwplayer('jwplayer-0').setup({\"image\":\"http:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/91t6oecY9cI\/0.jpg\",\"file\":\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=91t6oecY9cI\"});\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p itemprop=\"articleBody\">In the United States, Mr. Destin\u00e9 was seen on Broadway; at the New York City Opera, where in 1949 he was a featured dancer in the world premiere of William Grant Still\u2019s \u201c<a title=\"About the opera.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.troubledisland.com\/operasynopsis\/\">Troubled Island<\/a>,\u201d set in Haiti; and, as a performer and teacher, with the Jacob\u2019s Pillow Dance Festival in Becket, Mass. He also taught at New York University and elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p itemprop=\"articleBody\">Jean-L\u00e9on Destin\u00e9 was born on March 26, 1918, in Saint-Marc, Haiti, to a middle-class family: his father was a local government official, his mother a seamstress. After his parents divorced when he was a boy, he moved with his mother to the capital, Port-au-Prince, where they lived in reduced circumstances.<\/p>\n<p itemprop=\"articleBody\">From a very early age, Jean-L\u00e9on was captivated by Haitian music and drumming. As a youth, he learned traditional dance by attending the religious rituals and other celebrations of which it had long been an integral part. He also sang in the folkloric ensemble directed by Lina Mathon Blanchet, a prominent Haitian musician.<\/p>\n<p itemprop=\"articleBody\">In the 1940s, the young Mr. Destin\u00e9 received a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship to study printing and journalism in the United States. After taking classes at Howard University in Washington, he moved to New York, where he learned to operate and maintain <a title=\"See one here.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.woodsidepress.com\/LINOTYPE.HTML\">linotype machines<\/a>, then used to cast type for printing newspapers other publications.<\/p>\n<p itemprop=\"articleBody\">Mr. Destin\u00e9, who eventually became an American citizen, also continued dancing. In the late \u201940s he spent several years with the company of <a title=\"About Katherine Dunham.\" href=\"http:\/\/kdcah.org\/\">Katherine Dunham<\/a>, considered the matriarch of black dance in the United States.<\/p>\n<p itemprop=\"articleBody\">With Ms. Dunham\u2019s company, he danced on Broadway in the revue \u201cBal Negre\u201d at the Belasco Theater in 1946.<\/p>\n<p itemprop=\"articleBody\">Returning to Haiti for a time in the late \u201940s, Mr. Destin\u00e9 founded a national dance company there at the behest of the Haitian government. By the early \u201950s he had established his own company in New York.<\/p>\n<p itemprop=\"articleBody\">Mr. Destin\u00e9\u2019s survivors include three sons, G\u00e9rard, Ernest and Carlo, as well as grandchildren and great-grandchildren.<\/p>\n<p>For the original article: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/01\/30\/arts\/dance\/jean-leon-destine-haitian-dancer-and-choreographer-dies-at-94.html?src=recg&amp;_r=1&amp;\">Jean-L\u00e9on Destin\u00e9, Haitian Dancer and Choreographer, Dies at 94 &#8211; NYTimes.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the following New York Times article, Margalit Fox reports on the passing of renowned Haitian dancer and choregrapher, Jean-L\u00e9on Destin\u00e9. Jean-L\u00e9on Destin\u00e9, a Haitian dancer and choreographer who brought his country\u2019s traditional music and dance to concert stages around the world, died on Jan. 22 at his home in Manhattan. He was 94. Considered [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[63],"tags":[338,276],"class_list":["post-1008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dance","tag-haitian-dance","tag-jean-leon-destine"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4zx0X-gg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1008"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1012,"href":"https:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1008\/revisions\/1012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}