In Circle Sing Shout, participants are invited to experience community, connection, openness, and the feeling of being at home in our own bodies through the forms of call-and-response, rhythm, improvisation, and movement. Circle Sing Shout is inspired by the traditions of ring shout and Haitian rara, which combine movement, voice, and rhythm as powerful tools for generating liberation of the mind, body, and spirit through sacred sounds, collective strength, and ancestral connection.

This workshop is open to the community at large. It is multi-generational and inclusive of all levels of mobility and ability. You do not have to consider yourself a singer or dancer to participate. Bring your voices, open ears, and open heart!

About Circle Sing Shout
Circle Sing Shout is presented in partnership with The Mile-Long Opera, a citywide engagement project co-created by architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang, with words and lyrics by acclaimed poets Anne Carson and Claudia Rankine. The Mile-Long Opera is a biography of 7 o’clock, an ambitious, collective, free choral work that shares personal stories from hundreds of New Yorkers about life in our rapidly changing city that will take place October 3–7.

About the Artist
Haitian-American artist Goussy Célestin interchanges the roles of pianist, composer, vocalist, dancer, and arranger with ease. She has studied/performed music and dance for the last two decades with such esteemed names as Ron Carter, Jimmy Heath, C. Scoby Stroman, Max Roach, Donald Byrd, Barry Harris, and Sheila Jordan as a jazz pianist-vocalist, while studying with Pat Hall, Jean Leon Destiné, and Camille Yarbrough, as a dancer. Goussy currently performs throughout the NYC tri-state area as a musician and dancer.

Goussy’s current mission is integrating all of her disciplines in her project, Ayiti Brass, incorporating elements of traditional Haitian folklore and Jazz. Her recent awards include, Laundromat Project: Create Change Fellow, 2017, Queens Council on the Arts: NEW WORKS GRANT, 2017, Gardarev Resident Fellow, 2016, Field Leadership Artist Fellow, 2015 – 2017. Goussy is a faculty member for music education programs at Jazz at Lincoln Center.