WOMEN WEST INDIES
DIASPORA
Season 1
Maxette OLSSON
GUADELOUPE / SWEDEN
Maxette OLSSON, was born in Guadeloupe, French West Indies, and has lived in Sweden for over 30 years, where she brings all the sun, the colors and the laughter of her native island. While fully integrated in her country of adoption, where she married and successfully started her own business, Maxette remained very close to her Caribbean culture. A culture she enjoys sharing with others,
by writing, in Swedish, French and Creole (including a Swedish/Creole dictionnary) , teaching courses on West Indian littérature and traditions, and just by being her wonderful, generous and incredibly funny self at every occasion. She enjoys working with artists, whom she inspires to express the very best of their divine creativity and talent.
Angela HERON
JAMAICA / ETHIOPIA
Angela Heron, or Sister Bunny Asher, fulfilled the dream shared by many members of the Rastafarian community : the homecoming to the Holy Land of Ethiopia. In 1948 Emperor Haile Selassie, Ras Tafari Mekonen gave to all the black Diaspora from North America, South America and the Caribbean,
500 acres on the Mother Earth in Ethiopia, Shashamane, in the valley of Goba, 200 km south of Addis Ababa. West Indians were the first to settle there, mostly from Jamaica and Trinidad, and more recently the
French West Indies.
Professor at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, Angela choseto serve this community as director of the school that not only welcomes children of the group, but also Ethiopian children from the area.
Souria ADELE
MARTINIQUE / FRANCE
A Martinican who always lived in France, Souria ADELE first started singing and dancing in musicals,
and then decided to pursue her career in theatre and cinema. That’s when she discovered that opportunities were very limited for black actors in France. Frustrated of being offered to play only maids, she decided to write her own play where she describes humorously yet frankly the various forms of discrimination experienced by West Indians living in France.
She also fights for the recognition and teaching of the Creole language in the French school system. The strength of her convictions combined with a fierce sense of humor make up for a very rich and inspiring personality.
Jenny MEZILE
HAITI / IVORY COAST
Dancer, choreographer and actress Jenny Mezile was born in Jérémie, Haiti, where she studied traditional
dance and Jazz . After a successful career in Paris, as a dancer and voodoo consultant for theater, she now lives in Ivory Coast where she created a contemporary dance company with her husband, Massidi Adiatou, a renowned African choreographer. She also stars in a television series, creates television sets and started her own show on interior design.
Generous and compassionate, Jenny uses her talent to help the less fortunate, through training underprivileged youth and giving dance performances in hospitals and orphanages.
Dominique LEGENDRE
TRINIDAD / ENGLAND
Dominique Le Gendre was born in Trinidad & Tobago, and lives now in London, where she’s an associated composer at the Royal Opera House. She’s a prolific composer who wrote, among other
major works, the music for a radio broadcast of all of Shakespeare plays.
Her latest musical adventure, “Burial at Thebes” is an opera written in collaboration with two Noble Prices: Seamus Heaney, from Ireland and Derek WALCOTT, from Saint Lucia, performed at the prestigious Shakespeare Globe Theater.
Dominique is also inspired by the rich musical tradition of her native island and wrote a documentary film on Parang music, which characterizes the Christmas season of Trinidad, and belongs to the island’s Hispanic heritage.
Marie-Dominique AESCHLIMANN
GUADELOUPE / FRANCE
Born in Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, Marie-Dominique AESCHLIMANN has been a very gifted student and
graduated with honors at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris.
From then on, she’s led an outstanding political career through various mandates, as a deputy mayor, an elected member of the Ile-de-France Regional Council and parliamentary assistant of her husband, an elected member of the French Parliament. In these various capacities, she uses every opportunity to improve the quality of life of West Indians in France, through numerous activities led in collaboration with leading associations in the field.
Elisa GABREL
MARTINIQUE / THAILAND
Elisa MODESTE GABREL was born in PHU NHUAN, Vietnam, of a Martinican father who, like many of his compatriots, was fighting in the Indochina war with the French army. Repatriated to France with her family, she rediscovered, step by step, her West Indian origins and visited the island and her father’s family. She now leaves in Thailand where she started a distillery with her husband and is making … rum, in the purest Martinican tradition. It’s of course the only rum “made in Thailand” and won several awards.
What an interesting manner to get back in touch with her roots and promote Martinique’s culture on the other side of the world !
Marta MORENO VEGA
PUERTO-RICO / UNITED STATES
Born in New York to Puerto Rican parents, Marta began her career as a teacher and she quickly became aware of the identity problems of young people from the Caribbean Diaspora. She then got involved in the
associative and cultural fields and created the famous " Museo del Barrio" in Harlem, and the
Association of Hispanic Arts.
She is the founder and chairman of the Caribbean Cultural Center and African Diaspora Institute in New York, where she organizes numerous workshops, concerts and exhibitions on Africa and the Caribbean.
She has written several books and made a documentary about Santeria
When the spirits dance tMambo ".
Peggy MOHAN
TRINIDAD / INDIA
Born in Trinidad, Indian by her father, Canadian, Scottish and Irish by her mother, Peggy MOHAN is a melting pot of cultures and talents. Her ancestors were indentured workers hired from the north of India to work in the cane fields of Trinidad, after the abolition of slavery, an epic
story that she shares in her book.
Actually this Indian land has always fascinated her. She married an Indian and moved to New Delhi many years ago. Since, Peggy contributes in many ways to the country that adopted her: linguist, writer, music teacher, visual artist, Peggy has also produced television programs for children.
Fabiola SANTIAGO
CUBA / UNITED STATES
Born in Matanzas, Cuba, in 1959, Fabiola came to Miami at the age of ten, with many other Cuban families. Like all her compatriots who had to leave their country in dramatic circumstances, nostalgia for the lost paradise has never left her.
She’s now a journalist at the Miami Herald, one of the largest newspapers in the United States, and specializes in topics related to Cuba and Cuban people. With her team, she received two Pulitzer Prizes, including one for having published the first history of Elian who would later make headlines.
She is now in charge of visual arts in this prestigious newspaper.
Poet, writer, her first novel, Siempre Paris, tells the story of Marisol, a young Cuban exile in Miami who chooses love as an antidote to her uprooting.
Sarah RENELIK
HAITI / CANADA
Born in Quebec from haitian parents, it's through chant and dance that Sara RENELIK first reconnects with her roots and rediscovers her passion for her cultural heritage. avec ses racines et redécouvre avec passion son héritage culturel. Young prodigy choreographer, she collaborates in particular with the Cirque du Soleil and with Céline DION. Through her travels and encounters, Sara then discovered her voice, and her path, and embarked on this new career with as much desire to excel and to share. Author, composer, performer, sensitive and authentic, she revisits the traditional Haitian repertoire and explores her own universe, imbued with grace and spirituality. From concerts to festivals, Sara does not miss an opportunity to loudly carry the voice of her people and multiply community and cultural activities in the service of a community made up of nearly 300,000 Haitians living, like her, in Canada.
Rosie GORDON WALLACE
GUADELOUPE / FRANCE
Rosie Gordon-Wallace was born in Kingston, Jamaica where she had a degree in Medical Microbiology and Immunology. After a successful career in a major pharmaceutical company in the United States, Rosie
decided to entirely devote herself to her passion for the Arts and created in 1999 the Diaspora Vibe Gallery, one of the most famous art galleries of the East Coast of the United States.
This cultural space dedicated to artists of the Caribbean Diaspora is primarily a place of exchanges, meetings and artistic explorations, funded in part by the Andy Warhol and Ford Foundations.