November 16th Benefit Screening in San Francisco, CA

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Stills from 9 Hopes for Haiti

Join  Zaka, Ilona Berger and Jean-Guerly Pétion on November 16th for Fragmentation and Flux in Recent Haitian Film– a fundraiser for Jakmel Ekspresyon at Artist Television Access in San Francisco.

Participating Artists: Maksaens Denis, Guy Regis Jr, Zaka, Romel Jean-Pierre, Alex Art Louis, Jean-Guerly Pétion, Louis Ebby Angel

Audio visual performance following screenings by Jean-Guerly Pétion

Fragmentation and Flux is a program of work by Haitian filmmakers responding to radical shifts  in their physical, political, and social landscapes. These shifts can be characterized as both collisions and collusions, from the disaster capitalism merely accelerated by the earthquake, to the syncretism that has always made up Haitian culture.

Proceeds from the screening will benefit  Jakmel Ekspresyons, a grassroots, volunteer run arts organization that works on a model of solidarity to provide opportunities for training and exhibition in the arts. Jakmel Ekspresyons is welcoming to all and is a vital safe space for  local LGBTQ and disabled artists. They are raising funds to pay their rent, make their building disabled accessible, and build their digital arts lab.

An American volunteer doctor  working in  the sea side town Jacmel, experiences catharsis In “Zaka” Chery Claudel’s genre and gender crossing  9 hopes for Haiti . Romel Jean-Pierre’s Al fé Tet Ou is an experimental requiem created in Port au Prince after the earthquake.Maksaen Denis’s Deville/ Devil  follows a young group of activists in Port au Prince armed with paint, rollers, and tape who take back their city from the relentless branding by the Digicel telecommunications corporation. In Maksaen Denis’s  and  Guy Regis Jr’s M Le President we see a presidential candidate slowly change  from what he appears to be to who he really is. With a hair brush for a mic and a cut out painted bottle  for a camera,  the investigative Teleghetto journalists  roam the streets, tent camps and  and voting booths of Port au Prince.  Zaka’s  La Vie Dwol takes us into  a day in the life of  Sedjo, a load carrier facing challenges from every conceivable  direction. In Ebby Angel Louis’s sly narrative short, Miss Body Plastic, Dezilia who has grand ambitions to win a beauty contest and use the winnings to enact an environmental clean up program much to the consternation of the rest of the town who think she is delusional.   Somewhere in the diaspora, young Anton tries to divine our ecological trajectory with his Russian Tarot Cards In Jean Guerly Pétion’s, A Reading.

• 9 Hopes for Haiti, Zaka, 9.22 min
• Tele Ghetto Kokorat (Street Children) 3.43 min
• Al Fé tét Ou, Romel Jean-Pierre, 10.21 min
• Teleghetto 1 year After 9 min
• M Le President, Maksaens Denis and Guy Regis Jr, 6.00 minutes
• Miss Body Plastik Angel Ebby Louis 19.35 minutes
• Deville/Devil, Maksaens Denis, 6.00 minutes
• Lavie Dwol (A Strange Life), Zaka,  18.28
• A Reading, Jean Guerly Pétion 9.40

Lia Van De Donk

Some sad news from our friends at Kay Angel orphanage for children with HIV/AIDS in Jacmel, Haiti. Lia Van de Donk, house mother and great ally of Jakmel Ekspresyon has passed away suddenly. Her courage, perseverance and kind gentle heart will be missed by all. For more details click here to go to the Kay Angel site.

A Year in Review: How You Helped Jakmel Ekspresyon

 

The supporters and Administration of Jakmel Ekspresyon have raised $5,800 towards rent. We have $700 to go in order to meet our goal of $6,500 by June 1st. Help us today so that we can continue to provide resources where they are needed.

The past six months have been monumental for Jakmel Ekspresyon. Let’s look back at all of the amazing events that have taken place at or for Jakmel Ekspresyon since December of 2011.

December 2011

• Jakmel Ekspresyon Rented a New Building
• Jakmel Ekspresyon Started an IndieGoGo Campaign and raised $3000 from 44 funders
• Kwochè Ayiti Workshops at Jakmel Ekspresyon
• Caroline Paquita Sold Art to Benefit JE

January 2012

• JE Hosted Knitting Workshops
• JE Finished A Successful IndieGoGo Fundraiser
• Had Classes at JE 6 Days a Week
• Spare Change Theater (Resident Theater Program at JE) Website is Live

February 2012

• Hosted Kaleidoscope at Phyllis’ Musical Inn With Amazing Performances 
• Held Even More Classes Six Days a Week at Jakmel Ekspresyon

March 2012

• Saw the Amazing Film Makers For a Cause Video of JE
• Hosted Classes at JE 7 Days a Week!
• Spare Change Graduated A Class of Actors and Actresses

April 2012 

• Held Ra Ra Yo! A Fundraiser at Martyr’s 
• Got Invited to Verge Art Fair in NYC

May 2012

• Held Our First Concert at JE 
• Exhibited at Verge Art Fair NYC

On June 2nd, Jakmel Ekspresyon along with our neighbors – the dance troupe Explosion, will shut down our block for an epic dance party. We’re happy to be a part of our community and are glad to open our doors to the world!

Ra Ra Yo! Tonight!

Ra Ra Yo!

Live in Chicago or Chicagoland? Come out to see Environmental Encroachment, MC Sparkplug, and Low End Theory  at Martyr’s tonight. Check out Martyslive.com for advance tickets or get tickets at the  door  for only $10! All proceeds from the show go to help Jakmel Ekspresyon.

See you tonight.

We have a winner!

Congratulations Michelle Raz! She is our randomly selected winner of a pair of tickets to Ra Ra Yo! the Jakmel Ekspresyon fundraiser this Wednesday.

Congratulate her in person at Martyr’s. We’ll have some great music for a good cause. Don’t forget, you can get advance tickets for $10 from http://www.martyrslive.com/

Win Free Tickets to Ra Ra Yo!

Live in Chicago or Chicagoland? Want to come and see Environmental Encroachment, MC Sparkplug, and Low End Theory for FREE? You’ve got two ways to enter the drawing to win. Simply comment on this post or on our Facebook page. Tell us why you want to go to the show in three sentences or less. On Monday night April 16th at 8pm Central we’ll randomly pick one winner for a pair of free tickets to this show.

We’ll see the rest of you at Martyr’s on Wednesday. Check out Martyslive.com for advance tickets.

Haiti Communitere – our pals in Port Au Prince

Check out the new website of Haiti Communitere (formerly Grassroots United) of Port Au Prince. This organization has done big work focused on the tent towns of Haiti’s capital. Their Ubuntu Blox project is very inspiring. Partnering with women who live in the Cite Soleil neighborhood, Haiti Communitere hopes to carry out two important goals – constructing homes for those that do not have them and a reuse of commonly discarded materials.

The Ubuntu team are implementing street clean-ups and rubbish collection points to take Styrofoam food containers and film plastic out of the canals and drains around Port-au-Prince to repurpose as building materials. The materials are packed into rice bags and compressed into uniformly sized building blocks using a manual compression machine. The lightweight, flexible nature of the blocks makes them far more earthquake resistant than typical brick or concrete structures. A model Ubuntu home was recently tested for seismic resistance, and passed a simulated 8.2 earthquake with minimal damage.

Good Friday Rara

It’s not everyday that you hear the sound of rara music in Haiti. According to Jakmel Ekspresyon Administrator Aaron Funk, you can’t escape it these days in Jacmel.

Rara is a type of festive, hypnotic music played during Easter Week. The performers march from town to town in colorful costumes and play trumpets, drums and maracas. If you want to learn more about Rara in English, check out Elizabeth McAlister’s site.

Film Maker For a Cause

Hi everyone,I’m Alex, development director of Jakmel Ekspresyon. You’ll see me posting updates on our Facebook page, writing blog posts here and generally getting the word out about our organization. I don’t often write post here about my own travels or experiences, but I think that this story illustrates the magic of Jakmel Ekspresyon. In December I travelled to Jacmel with Sue, our Co-Director and my wife, Kristen, who led her second knitting workshop at Jakmel Ekspresyon. While in Jacmel as visitor you sometimes hear about other interesting people who are coming through town and you sometimes hope that the stars align and your paths cross in some way. We’d head about some “film maker guys” that were in town and our friends told us several times that we should meet them.

Sue, Kristen and I had gone to an outdoor dance party set up by a friend of a friend in Jacmel’s main square. This dance party was strictly for teens and kids. Loud bass, funky dancing, heavy beats and about 600 teenagers and their brothers and sisters jumping around and showing off their best dance moves. Our small group attracted other bemused adults and we were finally joined by a few guys we’d never met. As we introduced ourselves over the music, we realized that these were, in fact, Allan and Ian — the film maker guys.

Their organization, Film Maker for a Cause is a  ”not for profit organization that provides free film production, photography, and media services to other NGOs.” Their goal is a noble one. They say,”We believe that through the arts of photography and filmmaking we can help tell the stories of those making a difference in our world. ”

What it boils down to is that Film Maker for  A Cause travel the world making short promotional videos for organizations that need to promote themselves to the larger world. They charge nothing for their services and give the finished product to other not for profit organizations to do with as they please.

As we got to know Ian, Allan and Randall of Film Maker for A Cause I realized that their work is noble and very interesting. They came to Jakmel Ekspresyon for an evening and captured interviews with me, Kristen, Eder (a co-founder of Jakmel Ekspresyon), Aaron (our Administrator) and many others.

I am so grateful to Film Maker for A Cause  for putting together one of their fantastic videos for us. I think that it perfectly captures what it is we’re trying to do with this organization. Take a look:

Let them know what you think of their videos on their Facebook page.

Our Schedule for the Week

Stop by Jakmel Ekspresyon this week for some amazing classes :

Sunday
“Le cour” Rinyon 3pm-4pm
Repetition 4pm-7pm

Monday
“Le cour”, Repetition 3p-6pm
Yoga Class 6pm-7pm , Adults only
Faz 1 Theater 7pm-8:30pm

Tuesday
Yoga Class 6pm-7pm, adults only
Faz 1 Theater 7pm

Wednesday
Yoga class 6pm-7pm, adults only
Spare Change Members Meeting, Mandatory for all members

Thursday
Yoga Class 6pm-7pm, adults only
Technical Theater 7pm, members only

Friday
Yoga Class 6pm-7pm, adults only
Womens Theater Class,7pm, women only

Saturday
Childrens theater class, 2pm
“Le Cour” Repetition 3:30-6:30pm
Ballroom Dance, 7pm
Fire Dance Repetition, 7pm, on the roof.