4 minute read
Movement Turned Into a Movement w/ Sanford Placide
BY CYNTHIA VASQUEZ
“Y ou can leave me anywhere. I’ll find my way back,” That’s one of the first ways ballet dancer Sanford Placide, describes as the uniqueness of who he is. This Haitian born performer has showcased this innate ability while developing his career as a professional ballet dancer, and activist for Haitian arts and culture. He took some time to tell me about who he is, how he got here, and what he’s fighting for.
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He enters the small French café in Jersey City, where our interview takes place. He’s dressed in a white button-down shirt that slightly exposes his collarbone with a pair of fitted, ripped jeans and red-bottom moccasins. Others stare with brief interest or curiosity as he moves with swiftness and poise. His free-spirited, light-hearted nature is an open invitation for people to continue visuallypiecing him together. It was that same spirit of inquiry that drew me to him.
“My dad was always like, ‘You have to be proud of where you come from.’ Because, at the end of the day, that’s the one place you can always talk about,” Sanford explains in between sips of his coffee. “My first experiences are down on that island. So, I don’t know anywhere else better than that island. I think that has helped me in my career because then people have a better idea of who I am.”
Growing up, his parents required him and his siblings to be skilled in at least one art form. Realizing he wasn’t the best pianist, he gravitated to dance, finding a love for ballet that opened a plethora of doors, opportunities, and relationships to a new life he learned to appreciate away from home.
Our waiter returns, placing another coffee in front of him. A couple of seconds go by, and Sanford inhales as he collects his thoughts before giving a detailed account of his life before receiving asylum to move to Miami, Florida.
“We owned auto parts, we owned food stores, we owned clothing stores. If you go to Gonaives, you cannot say our name to [anyone] and not know who we are. That also puts you in danger in a country like that, and that’s how I’m here,” he explains.
As a teenager, he and his two brothers were sent to live in the U.S. while his parents stayed in Haiti to manage their businesses and send money to care for them. He described the experience as being blindfolded and asked to find a tennis ball in a rice field. With little guidance and constant feelings of separation anxiety, he was coming to terms with a new life in a country where the people and culture were foreign. And the language barrier didn’t make it any easier.
Sanford laughs as he recalls the English he learned in Haiti to be “quite terrible.” “For example, you would say, ‘Cynthia’s car; and then [I would] say, ‘The car of Cynthia.’ Very proper in books but imagine with the worst accent you can ever imagine.”
Many of his African American classmates picked on him because of his thick accent. Coming from an area of Haiti where French is taught in schools, many of the Haitian-American kids thought he was acting superior by speaking to them in French rather than Creole. He was also bullied physically. However, he did not break. Instead, he adapted to American culture without losing his core but most importantly, he kept dancing.
Dance in this sense was more than just a hobby for Sanford; it was a blessing in disguise. He could escape all of the unexpected changes in his life and finally express himself without words. It kept him focused and goal-oriented and exposed him to an entirely new world.
He starts to smile as he begins to talk about his summer in Russia. “Last summer, I was like, ‘Wow, I’m a Haitian dancer who was getting paid to get on a plane to go dance in Russia.’ It was like I need[ed] to start feeling proud of myself,” he admits. “There are so many things that could have happened. I’m proud of what I’ve done so far. Though it’s very early, I’m still in my 20s and I still have [more] places to go, I have very big ambitions and huge goals.”
He traveled around the United States studying at prestigious institutes like the American Ballet Theatre School, Dance Theater of Harlem, and Ballet Hispánico to name a few. As dance became a full-time career, he became a nomad performing on stages in Germany, Russia, South America, and even the Caribbean. After graduating from the French Academie of Ballet in Manhattan, he began his first professional dance career at North Carolina Dance Theatre 2.
He opens his Instagram to show me a series of solo shots from photoshoots. His body lines are sharp and clean and his physique has me jealous. I look at him and ask what’s his favorite part about being a dancer to which he ironically responds, “Being fit.”
Although he has not returned to Haiti, he is integrating Haitian culture into ballet’s classical repertoire and opening doors for others who look like him. In 2018, he founded UNI, a nonprofit whose name can be read as U-N-I or seen as the first three letters for “union.” It aims to unite the arts serving as a creative hub for the richness and diversity of his roots.
The collective received the honor of being endorsed by the Haitian Consulate in New York City back in May 2018. Since then they have held two UNI events for and authenticated by the Consulate, pushing the celebration of Hatian visual and performing artist.
I’ve never seen a show being done like that,” Sanford says while describing Sans Souci, the name of UNI’s second event in May 2019. “This year’s [past] theme was royalty because we have royalty. The name was Sans Souci, the name of the first palace in Haiti ever to house a black king and queen in the [new] world.” He choreographed the dance pieces and intentionally incorporated traditional Haitian folk music. The event received a considerable amount of appraisal and recognition by Caribbean-led publications, including the Haitian Times.
As we come to the close of our interview, you can see the joy on his face reflecting back on his life and ballet career. Sanford is single handedly helping black people see themselves as powerful and unlimited so they can ignore ceilings limiting their reach. Even though he does not say it directly, it becomes clear Sanford wants to set the precedent that if a migrant forced out of his country can do it, then anyone who looks like him can, too.
Instagram: @placidesanford
