Men Nan Men: Support Kriyol Dance! Artists for Lavi Miyò!

We pride ourselves on free admission to community events. We request support to provide 14 artists with at least $200 stipends to honor their contributions to the success of our June 2018 performance, Lavi Miyò.

Dear Kriyol Dance! Family,

My name is Veroneque Ignace, and I am the founding creative director of Kriyol Dance! Collective (KDC). I am requesting your support for our “Men nan Men | Hand-in-Hand” Campaign - a fundraising effort to provide stipends for artist collaborating on our June 2018 Lavi Miyò performance.  
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Founded in 2016, KDC is a collective of artist-leaders working together on one platform to advocate for the unapologetic voices of Black arts, and Haitian culture in particular, through collaborative and unified work and intervention. I created this collective as an artistic intervention to explore and create spaces for community togetherness and healing, using the tools our ancestors imprinted upon us. Memory, tradition, and innovation are the very tools that help define and generate a spirit of embodied resistance and collective action.

This tenet is what grounds all of our efforts, and in particular our newly completed seminal choreographic work Lavi Miyò, a collaborative dance, music, and visual arts project that employs storytelling and Haitian traditional music, dance, and oral history. The argument at its foundation is the claim that consuming the overarching and highly romanticized notions of resistance and resilience, with regards to black peoples, and especially people of Haitian descent, disregards the day-to-day traumas that individuals experience. The project involves an art-making process centered on notions of resilience, resistance, power, and empowerment, and, their implications on physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health.

The piece will be performed on June 21st and June 22nd this year at FiveMyles Gallery; free admission. It is a collaborative effort between current Kriyol Dance! artists, visual artist and architect Nathalie Jolivert, singer and preservationist Sirene Dantor of Fanmi Asòtò, LLC., Five Myles Gallery, Crossing Midnight Entertainment, community organizer Sakena Sampson of Girls Empowerment Circle, Inc., and Lakou Societe St. Michel Archange.

In KDC, we pride ourselves on being able to provide free community offerings, while also being able to support our artists and collaborators creatively and financially. Each artist has, and continues to dedicate their time and expertise to rehearsal, art creation, and interim performances from January to June 2018. We aim to provide 14 participating artists with at least $200 stipends to honor their contributions to the success of Lavi Miyò. Our total request is $3,500.   
 
For Lavi Miyò, KDC will be receiving financial support from a 2018 Neighborhood Grant from Citizens Committee for New York City and will join more than 300 grassroots groups across the city working to build community and improve our neighborhoods. Still, we need your help!

A donation, in any amount, to KDC will help in providing artist stipends for performers participating in Lavi Miyò. Please consider supporting us!

You can make contributions to our crowdfunding page here. Our campaign will be open until June 20th, 2018.

Find out more information about what we do on our website, kriyoldance.wix.com/kriyol.

Thank you in advance!
Sincerely,
Veroneque Ignace
Founding Artistic Director, Kriyol Dance! Collective