The opening performance features Brooklyn-based Rasin Okan, whose music grows from Haiti’s mizik rasin movement.
Véronëque Ignace, who has performed with the group since 2017, said Rasin Okan traces its history to the late 1990s in Brooklyn while drawing directly from Haitian ceremonial traditions.
Unlike many mizik rasin groups, Rasin Okan performs in the “rasin sèch,” or “dry roots,” style, relying primarily on hand drums and voices instead of electric instruments.
Brooklyn’s Haitian community has shaped the borough for generations, Ignace said, and performances like Midsummer Nights offer a chance to celebrate that legacy in public.
“The music that we’re sharing, because it’s so tethered to tradition and it is inherently connected to dance and rhythm, that in itself is the connective tissue,” she said.