During the fall of her first year at Wellesley, Merelin Baldonado ’25 attended the annual Orgs Fair on Severance Green. As she visited tables with representatives from dozens of organizations and clubs, she heard drumming in the distance that brought back memories from her childhood in a middle-class Dominican neighborhood of New York City. She followed the drumbeats to students from Yanvalou, a drum and dance ensemble that performs the music and dances of African diasporic communities in Haiti, Ghana, Brazil, and elsewhere. The ensemble welcomed her instantly, and she never looked back.
“What attracted me was the drum, but what kept me there was the community,” Baldanado says.
As a senior, Baldonado served as president of the ensemble. At Jewett Auditorium on April 5, she performed in her last Yanvalou concert, part of a special weekend of events to celebrate the group’s 35th anniversary. The theme of this year’s spring show was “Wongol,” a Haitian dance that embodies the story of return. Kera Washington ’93, Yanvalou’s faculty advisor and one of its founders, says the theme is relevant to the ongoing refugee crisis in Haiti and the need to stay connected to one’s culture. The theme also celebrated the seniors venturing out into the world, the first-years being welcomed into the group, and the alumnae who return to Yanvalou.
The anniversary celebration began with drum and dance workshops led by Peniel Guerrier and Harrison Tei, Wellesley’s music instructors in Afro Caribbean diaspora drumming and choreography, followed by the spring concert and a performance by Zili Misik, Washington’s jazz fusion group. The next day, these Yanvalou alums gathered in person and via livestream to discuss the impact, history, and future of the group: Johanne Blain ’00, Valerie Antoine-Gustave ’01, Katherine Jenkins Djom ’03, Katie Flaster ’03, Aishwarya Lakshmi Ratan ’03, Morgan Wells ’03, Jennifer O’Donnell ’05, Maia Macdonald ’06, Ashley Freeman ’08, Sara Waltuck ’11, Emily Orgias ’16, Danielle Black ’18, Zilpa Oduor ’18, Hawah Kallon ’19, Kristen Adams ’20, Frannie Adams ’21, Ann-Marsha Alexis ’22, Awino Odhiambo ’22, and Nafisa Rashid ’23. During the spring concert Yanvalou also presented prerecorded video messages from alums, sharing, as Flaster says, “the deep and unique effect Yanvalou has had and continues to have on [our] lives.” (Click here to watch the full recording of “Wongol! A 35th Anniversary Celebration.”)
The love that pours in both directions is what connects us all still, across miles and years, and keeps me coming back.
The strong connection between the many generations of ensemble members is a cornerstone of the Yanvalou experience. Baldonado recalls when Gerdes Fleurant, associate professor emeritus of music at Wellesley, visited the group and talked with students and alumnae about how Yanvalou came together.
“It was just so beautiful, seeing all these different generations in one room,” says Baldonado, “talking about how it came to be, how it is today, and what we hope it’ll be like in the future. Just being able to see that was amazing.”
Cheryl Minde ’24, who wrote about community-building through Yanvalou in 2022, recalls Fleurant opening the spring 2023 show with the song “Yanvalou.” This, too, was a beautiful moment of celebration, says Minde, of the “entire legacy of not just the ensemble and music, but also the people who have kept the tradition of Yanvalou alive both on and off campus.” The song is close to her heart as it was the first piece she learned as a first-year and the first she led in the ensemble in her senior year: “I felt like my journey with the ensemble and at Wellesley was represented by my journey with learning and playing ‘Yanvalou.’”
Yanvalou is unique in that students learn the songs and dances through an oral tradition, rather than through sheet music or recordings. To teach a song, Washington will start on the drum, very slowly, and then students will copy what she has played. This process repeats until students feel like they’ve fully absorbed the rhythms of the song. Baldonado says the group sometimes spends over an hour learning one rhythm or section of a song. She believes this pedagogical approach lets students create their own spins on traditional music. It also makes for an egalitarian structure within the group, with all members of the ensemble learning collectively. Regardless of previous musical experience, “this is a new language for all of us,” says Baldonado.
But sometimes, even a new thing can feel familiar—like coming home. Wells, who served as Yanvalou’s dance captain from 2000 to 2003, reflects on the group’s impact on her: “As a white, cis woman of settler colonial ancestry, I’ll never be able to explain why I found a kind of home here, or why the rhythms of Haiti made sense in ways that not much else had up to that point,” she says, adding that her experience of learning in an Afrocentric space was “life-altering.”
“It isn’t what we learn, but how we learn here, and what is expected of us—an honor and respect that comes when you know you must earn something, even while at the same time it is offered with such selfless generosity,” she continues. “The love that pours in both directions is what connects us all still, across miles and years, and keeps me coming back.”
Now a mother, wife, social worker, and teacher in Seattle, Wells says that as she moves through the world, she tries to embody the humility and respect she learned from Yanvalou: “I remind myself when I am entering a new space to slow down and listen, wait to be invited, and begin with the simplest instrument. These lessons have enabled me to learn from elders that saw a readiness in me, and I will be forever grateful. Above all I always remember that rhythm and ritual are essential—it is how we heal, in community, as all of our ancestors knew at one time or another.”