A Multimedia Conversation with Evens Clercema

Join us for a multimedia and performative conversation with Haitian choreographer and dancer Evens Clercema. Born in Trou-du-Nord, Haiti in 1981, Evens immigrated to Chile in 2010 where he completed his Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and is currently working on his Master’s in Sociology. With a well-established teaching practice in Chile focused on Afro-diasporic dance, Evens is also regularly invited to give workshops in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and has toured to Belgium, France, Portugal and Spain.

Evens founded the contemporary jazz dance company, JAFCO America, based in Santiago, Chile, in 2010. In 2019, JAFCO premiered Trance: Cuerpo y Ancestralidad, a full-length production, at the Centro Cultural Gabriela Mistral (GAM) and presented Trance again in 2020 at the important Santiago A Mil festival.

Trance is a powerful meditation on Haitian culture and Evens’ experience of immigration in Chile. In a statement about Trance, Evens states, “Migratory transit is not only geographical, social and emotional, but also spiritual. Taking the Haitian Vodou tradition as our central inspiration, we re-signify the migratory transit as a journey to the origin, freely re-establishing the connection with nature and ancestral culture.”