Racines sans bout*

Beyond concepts of before and after, beyond time itself, across cycles, centuries, and ages.

This text highlights the core aspects of Maud Robart's practical research into the ritual roots of art. Over many years, Maud Robart, born in Haiti, has conducted this exploration with participants from various nationalities and disciplines, drawing key insights from the danced and sung liturgies of Afro-Haitian Vodou traditions.

How can we be guided to perceive the essence that endures in these ancient practices?

The vision that the ancient Africans had of creativity was forged from the nourishing sap of a cosmic feeling. Transcending time, this vision continues to be expressed through the dynamic forms—both original and evolved—that carry the sacred (and secret) connection between art, humanity, and Life itself.

Is this connection still relevant in today’s culture?

The following exposition outlines the methods and approaches used in this exploratory journey, directly engaging with the vibrations of songs and movements. A respectful adherence to the principles of oral tradition reveals the coherence and power of these ancient ritual techniques rooted in song and dance. They convey a unique form of knowledge, one that emerges from the secrets of sounds, rhythms, movements, and the effects they produce. This knowledge arises from a raw sensory awakening and direct perception, intertwined with the energies of life.

Beyond aesthetics, this research embraces a wide range of perspectives and sensitivities, traversed by essential questions about humanity—common to the creative, religious, and scientific spheres...

PRACTICAL TOOLS

They consist of a core corpus, new instruments that emerge from the practice itself and determine its evolution, and occasionally the integration of external technical elements.

1. The Core Corpus
   The core corpus consists of a selection of songs associated with the Rada ritual, guided by the yanvalou rhythm, which serves as the primary instruments for this exploration. These chants are performed a cappella, and the movements associated with them are spontaneously generated by the chants themselves. These movements express the internal energy that drives both the rhythm of the chant and the singer's impulses.
   From this core, several practices emerge: cycles of repetitive vocal sounds, incantatory words (which enhance awareness of the vibrational power of words in relation to sound and rhythm), danced marches, and structures for collective action.
   

   Why the Rada?
   The Rada ritual, the oldest of the Afro-Haitian Vodou rites, maintains the closest connection to ancestral Africa. Based on Robart's experience, the majestic yanvalou rhythm that accompanies these songs—with its rhythmic and cyclical structure of impulse, accent, suspension, fall, and rest— connects us harmoniously to the salvific energy of the depths, to what is directly given by life.

2. The Evolution of the Practice
   The practice evolves naturally due to its unique ability for spontaneous development and heuristic exploration. These instruments facilitate a process of investigation that they themselves provoke on multiple levels, awakening the necessary skills for this purpose—a lived process where transmission, creation, and skill converge.

   • Emergence of New Instruments
     The main repertoire is not fixed; its components are dynamic and continuously evolving. Within the interplay of complex interactions, latent potential often manifests as unexpected energy seeking its own form. When this happens, this phenomenon is channeled, and the new structures that emerge are incorporated into the practice because, after evaluation, they reveal all the qualities of a traditional instrument.

   • The Art of Connecting Elements from Different Cultures
     As Claude Lévi-Strauss suggests, Haitian culture, already a result of successful syncretism, provides an ideal environment for the spontaneous emergence of new forms as mentioned above. For this reason, Robart naturally explores connections between traditional disciplines.
     
     Technical contributions from outside the main repertoire—recognized for fostering a conscious relationship with the body, voice, rhythm, and space—are sometimes incorporated. These can include principles of somatic education that enhance body control in motion, elements of yoga, or other ancient techniques that view the body as an entity in constant exchange with the world. Additionally, fragments of ancient texts, which transcend ordinary language, may be used to add complexity to both individual and collective actions. These integrations, resonating with the core practice, can highlight the relationship between verbal expression and meaningful physical action within the sensory experience.
     
     The plurality of these influences is neither heterogeneous nor accidental. Each, in its specificity, through its unique contribution, invites participants to discover for themselves the foundations and basis of traditional techniques, the common link that certain practices share.

OVERVIEW OF THE EXPLORATORY PRACTICES

Continuing work with a core group of long-term participants has opened new paths for exploration, allowing deeper engagement with specific elements of the practice. The instruments developed each have a unique name and purpose.

For example:

• The Walk that Dances You: Walking is a foundational force of human existence, embodying an original gesture that structures our lives and has long set the pace of our actions. Rooted in the artistic expressions of traditional cultures, where it takes shape in codified dances paired with voice and music, walking reveals a rhythmic architecture of symmetry, simplicity, and repetition. In ritual traditions, through forms such as pilgrimages, processions, and wanderings, it opens pathways toward new possibilities. The Walk that Dances You delves into this founding act through various forms of walking: natural, archetypal, danced walks, walked dances, and other rhythmic step patterns—drawn from isolated elements of voodoo dances. Here, however, these walks are performed in complete silence, with no voice, no songs, no musical instruments, guided only by the internal rhythm that supports the movement. Against this backdrop of silence, the integrative principle of repetition takes effect. Within the seeming monotony of rhythmic patterns, a transformative process unfolds, leading to the realization that all form arises from the living essence that animates it.

• The Listening Body
  At the core of physical experience, the exploration of archaic songs and movements takes place in the present, brought to life by the "listening body." Over the years, a physical practice has developed through this approach, focusing on returning to what is elemental and original. A series of specific exercises and movements with varied dynamics nurtures a new sensitivity, opening the way to a different state of being. This process heightens awareness of the body's subtle vitality, awakening the "listening body" to what is simple and vibrant within us.

• Rhythmic Sonorities
  The rhythmic sonorities in Maud Robart's work invite people from different cultures to experience another's rhythm as if it were their own. Rhythmic principles can vary widely between cultures; in African music, the power of rhythm is paramount, a quality that has been passed down to rituals rooted in ancestral Africa. In Haiti, the songs—paths to mysteries—achieve their full essence through the tight fusion of melody and rhythm. Robart's approach involves singing a cappella. For participants from different cultural backgrounds, each with their own rhythmic references, it can be challenging, without percussion, to grasp the rhythmic framework that supports the song. Without this structure, even a beautiful melody can lose its form, becoming a diluted version of itself. The rhythmic sonorities—syncopated, sung syllables—highlight the dynamics of the sound. They are crafted from the simplest rhythmic patterns that drive the polyrhythms used in traditional rituals. This approach keeps the melody and word meanings secondary, encouraging playful vocal engagement with repetitive sound cells. The participant gains autonomy. Through this detour, they learn to develop a fine perceptual relationship with the sound material, to connect confidently to the pulsating strength of the song, in concert with the whole.

• Salutation
  Standing in its verticality, the “saluter” explores the complex effects of a dynamic movement consisting of rhythmically turning on oneself. Each turn executed to the right is followed by a turn to the left, in an alternating succession of spirals. The manifestation of the energy flow thus generated is ordered around a clear pattern that is simultaneously rhythmic, mental, affective, and meaningful. By intensifying the feeling of participating in the eternal laws of rhythm, vibration, and harmony, this spiraled structure brings us back, through a mysterious alchemy, to our inner peace, a reflection of the Great Peace that fills the cosmos.

• The Measure of Words Borders on the Inexpressible
  This space of research provides participants immersed in the orality of the practice the opportunity to reflect in writing on the traces their lived experiences have left within them. Due to its fluid nature, this experience is impossible to fully articulate. Measuring words to capture even a resonance of the experiential process poses both an intellectual and human challenge.

The Technicality of the Approach

Everything discussed so far hints to a fundamental aspect shared by all humans: the intimate relationship with life. The higher realms of Life can be accessible to everyone. To respond to this call, no specific knowledge is required. Simply being present, facing facts without embellishment, and feeling is sufficient: everything in the action is accomplished through intuitive listening.

Guided by a disinterested attention, this movement towards a state of presence free from conditioning, which one might call "becoming the listener you already are," spans all levels of the practice. Singing, receiving rhythm and vibrations, as well as entering into relationships, cannot exist without listening; the secret of "participation" lies in this process of openness that is listening.

The true listener enters a receptive attitude and discovers, in the intensity of silence, a state of holistic perception in which all the senses merge. They can then advance in this open investigation into the unknown, perhaps reaching those experiential shores that phenomenology would appreciate exploring in the field.
The inclusive and non-violent nature of listening reveals a very subtle pedagogy; this is the technicality of the approach.
And yet, this statement should not suggest that there is a specific technique to become a listener. It is only through listening that one becomes a listener.

Potentially…

This practice invites independent researchers from all disciplines to move beyond established techniques and methods, beyond the mental-verbal framework, to maintain an open space that welcomes the “je ne sais quoi”*** (a certain something) that can emerge from this convergence. To honor the integrity of the research, the driving force behind the creative effort must be risk-taking free from any expectation of results. The underlying intent of this proposal, calling upon interactive abilities, is the pedagogy of the encounter itself.

This invitation draws its strength from a desire to allow all the potentials of the situation to emerge by taking the necessary time.

These artistic elements effectively help awaken the subtle dimensions of the senses and of being, bringing us into a vibrant present, aligning thought and action. This suggests that the conditions here—bridges extended beyond different disciplines—are ideal for fostering such encounters. They encourage the seamless merging of differences, without confusion of realms, through the unpredictable interplay of analogical resonances that they are likely to create.

This research reflects the aspiration to approach a "well-rounded truth," not to prove it but to feel it as an intuition, guiding us back—either through gentle transformation or the surprise of an "experiential flash"—to original simplicity.

* “Roots without end”

**Here, creativity in its metaphysical dimension expresses the original function of art: to connect humans to the great cosmic forces, to help life continue...

*** The process of incorporating one of these new instruments is described in the text by Cristina Baruffi, “The Odyssey of Salutation.”

**** Vladimir Jankélévitch, Le Je-ne-sais-quoi et le Presque-rien, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1957.