Toto Bissainthe

Marie Clotilde "Toto" Bissainthe (1934 – June 4, 1994) was a Haitian actress and singer known for her innovative blend of traditional Vodou and rural themes and music with contemporary lyricism and arrangements. Born in Cap-Haïtien in 1934, she left Haiti at an early age to pursue her acting studies abroad. Her career started in theatre with the company Les Griots, of which she was a founding member in 1956. Griots was at the vanguard of négritude-inspired cultural institutions in France, and was the first African theatre company in Paris.

The Griots was the troupe that gave the first performance of Jean Genet's play "The Blacks." She also worked with the playwright Samuel Beckett and the director Roger Blin and acted in several films.

With a groundbreaking performance in 1973 at La vieille grille in Paris, Toto Bissainthe established herself as singer-songwriter-composer, stunning the audience with her soul-stirring renditions of original compositions that paid homage to the lives, struggles, miseries and spirituality of working class and rural Haitians.

The singer and actress Toto Bissainthe was recognized by many as a champion of Haitian music abroad.

An artist in exile, Toto Bissainthe will be unable to return to the Haiti that so inspired her until the departure of Jean-Claude Duvalier in 1986. However, the multiple disappointments of the unending democratic transition and political infighting would forever embitter the outspoken artist, who had long dreamed of a return to help rebuild her motherland. Saddened by Haiti's social and political degradation, Toto Bissainthe's health would enter a downward spiral ending with her death from liver damage on June 4, 1994. The cause was cirrhosis, her family said.

Toto Bissainthe studied acting in France where she founded The Griots with Roger Blain. This was the first black theatre company in France. Some of the plays titled in French included Papa bon Dieux, Les negres, Negres, negres, L’ombre de la ravine, and L’invite de Pierre, among others. She also had some roles in film, including Les tripes au soleil and En l’autre bord .

She began singing in 1962, after a return to Haiti. “Because in my family, we always loved singing and I missed it. I started a little bit by chance: in a hotel…and on that evening I remember that I sang a song”. She continued singing at that hotel once a week for three to four months in French and in Haitian Creole.

Among her albums are Ti Lorai Cale released in 1976, Toto à New York from 1975, Toto chante Haïti from 1977, Haïti Chanté- Chant du Monde published in 1977, and others. Toto was constantly praised in the media for her music. In an 1967 Haitian newspaper, a journalist wrote the following praising her album:

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