La Fondation pour la Mémoire de l’Esclavage [The Foundation for the Memory of Slavery] presents “Toto Bissainthe— une haïtienne à Paris” a multimedia event co-sponsored by the Centre Pompidou. This event includes a screening, performances, and a panel moderated by Kévi Donat (lecturer, podcaster) with the participation of Jessica Lundi-Léandre (visual artist), Mariann Mathéus (singer, actor), Jehyna Sahyeir (singer, actor), and Dimitri Sandler (professor of cinema and philosophy, photographer, director). The program takes place on Sunday, May 11, 2025, from 4:00 to 6:00pm, at the Forum du Centre Pompidou (Place Georges-Pompidou, Paris, France).
Description: As part of the programming for the “Paris Noir” exhibition, this event aims to highlight an iconic figure of Haitian culture. A committed singer, composer, and actress, born in 1934 and deceased in 1994, Toto Bissainthe sang about Haiti, its pain, and its resistance, in a style blending traditional music and modern arrangements, also drawing on songs of slavery drawn from oblivion.
To introduce the conversation, a screening of the portrait of Toto Bissainthe (4 min, 1984) by Sarah Maldoror will recall their partnership in the Griots theater company and will allow audiences to see her on stage.
Hosted by Kévi Donat, tour guide for “Paris Noir” and podcast editor, this conversation between several generations aims to intrigue, move, and invite the audience to discover this grande dame. The panel reflects the diverse facets of Toto Bissainthe. To guide newcomers, Jessica Lundi-Léandre, a young Haitian painter living in Nantes, will present the biography of Toto Bissainthe [. . .].
Dimitri Sandler, a member of the artist’s family and writer, will offer a more intimate perspective, reflecting her personality and demanding commitments.
On stage, Mariann Mathéus, who sang and performed with Toto Bissainthe, will provide a musical response to Jehyna Sahyeir, a young singer and actress inspired by the artist. They will exchange views on the experience of Black and Caribbean women artists across generations.
A meeting of generations in voices and images, between testimonies and musical moments, to evoke this artist, full of poetry and revolt, in the present. A partnership between the Centre Pompidou and the Foundation for the Memory of Slavery as part of the 2025 Time of Memories dedicated to Haiti on the occasion of the bicentenary of the double debt imposed on Haiti.
PROGRAM
- 16:00 Screening of the film “Toto Bissainthe” by Sarah Maldoror, 1984
- Introduction by Kévi Donat
- 16:10 Songs par Mariann Matheus (and accompanying musicians)
- 16:25 Presentation of Toto Bissainthe’s biography
- Response by Dimitri Sandler: intimate memories, character traits of T. Bissainthe, exile and diaspora
- 16:50 Conversation thème 1: Music and Toto Bissainthe
- 17:05 Conversation thème 2: Her political engagement
- 17:20 Songs by Jehyna Sahyeir (and accompanying musicians)
- 17:35 Songs by Mariann Matheus and Jehyna Sahyeir
- 17:45 Karaoké with the audience
Toto Bissainthe: Haitian artist, singer, songwriter, performer, actress, and human rights activist. Known by her stage name Toto Bissainthe, Marie-Clothilde Bissainthe is an iconic figure in Haitian culture. A singer, actress, and activist, she fought throughout her life to denounce the injustice suffered by the people of her country, Haiti, and to defend human rights.
She was born on April 2, 1934, in Cap-Haïtien, into a family that suffered from the American occupation of Haiti between 1915 and 1934, the year of her birth.
After an initial stay in the United States in 1953, she moved to Paris at the age of 19 to pursue her studies. There, she began her acting career, first in the theater in 1956 with the play Le mariage de Fatou, written by Emile Cissé, which was followed by a tour in Africa. The same year, she founded with Guadeloupean Robert Liensol and Sarah Maldoror, also of Guadeloupean origin, Senegalese Ababacar Samb Makharam, and Ivorian Timité Bassori, the company Les Griots, the first theater troupe made up exclusively of black actors and actresses. She won second prize in the national university theater competition in 1956 for the play Huis clos, by Jean-Paul Sartre. In 1957, the company Les Griots began directing and producing four other plays, including Abdou Ankara’s La fille des dieux, directed by Roger Blin, who joined the troupe the same year, as well as Synge’s L’ombre de la ravine, and Alexander Pushkin’s L’invité de Pierre. In 1959, she was part of the cast of Jean Genet’s play Les Nègres.
Her first film appearance in 1959 caused a scandal: in Les Tripes au Soleil, Claude Bernard Aubert depicted one of the first kisses between a white man and a Black woman in a film. She then worked for the great directors who represented the Afro-descendant diasporas in cinema: Senegalese Ousmane Sembène in 1966 with The Black Woman of…, Haitian Raoul Peck in 1991 with The Man on the Quays, and Franco-Mauritanian Med Hondo in 1979 with West Indies ou les nègres marrons de la liberté [West Indies or the Maroons of Freedom]. In this film, she confronts the memory of slavery, a subject that would haunt her throughout her life and which she would encounter again on the island of Gorée in Senegal, a place where slaves were transported to the West Indies as part of the slave trade, a visit to which would remain a profound event.
In the 1960s, she also established herself as a singer: inspired by Haitian spirituality and peasant traditions, she released an album in 1966 in collaboration with the Ferdinand Dor Jazz Quartet. Blending Haitian melodies, voodoo influences, and French classical music, this album becomes a way for her to defend and disseminate Caribbean culture beyond its borders, particularly in Europe.
Toto Bissainthe’s musical career has taken her around the world, with numerous tours in North America, the Caribbean, and Europe. She has called upon other singers for her group, such as Mariann Mathéus and Marie-Claude Benoit. For Toto Bissainthe, singing music inspired by Vodou is a way of giving voice to the forgotten, the enslaved, and their descendants. It is a tribute to their resistance and their struggles. It is a reminder that by rebelling in Haiti, they enlightened the world. [. . .]
Excerpts translated by Ivette Romero. For more information, photos and bios of participants, see https://memoire-esclavage.org/toto-bissainthe-une-haitienne-paris
For full bio of Bissainthe, visit https://memoire-esclavage.org/biographies/toto-bissainthe
[Photo above by Frédéric Thaly.]