Clara Zimban
The year is 1984. The streets are alive with an unusual commotion in Guadeloupe, an island nestled between two folds of the Caribbean Sea. The crowd’s voices blend into one and infuse the air with music. The ground shakes under the rhythm of drums and the weight of dancing bodies. Five thousand people will gather on the town square of Pointe-à-Pitre over the course of three days. The man of honor is Marcel Lollia, but the crowd cries out the one name they knew him by – Vélo! Vélo! Vélo!
Vélo lies in a simple wooden casket. He used to sit on this very square by Miss Adeline’s grocery store. He’d play the drum like no other, imposing the rhythm of his soul onto the stretched goat skin. He lived most of his life in poverty; he didn’t own a house, had no family, and died alone from liver disease. Yet he became, in his death, a symbol of the Guadeloupean identity and its most traditional music, Gwoka, the heartbeat of a nation.
Gwoka is based in improvisation, centered around the drum, and rooted in the trenches of Guadeloupe’s first sugar plantations. A question hides in the intricacies of its art form: How can beauty grow out of pain?
THE HISTORICAL PAIN
1636, Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe.
Thousands of men and women, captured and transported across the Atlantic Ocean, arrive in the Caribbean. They emerge from the ship’s dark, suffocating belly covered in filth after weeks of torture. French merchants yell, “Avancez!” as the men and women stumble onto the dock. Their destinies meet the Guadeloupean soil, and over the next centuries, the island will transform into an arena of death where cruelty is the metric of wealth; violence, the language of power.
On Saturday evenings, the enslaved gather around this art form inspired by African traditions and adapt it to plantation life. Gwoka becomes an outlet for emotions bigger than the circumstances of the enslaved’s new world. The léwòz, its communal celebration, is free and open to all.
THE EMERGING BEAUTY
The weekly events are still celebrated throughout Guadeloupe, reproducing the codes and traditions invented by our ancestors centuries ago. One dancer must step into a circle of singers, musicians, and a cheering audience. Being center stage, the dancer improvises movement inspired by the ensemble's energy and drumming, forming an intuitive connection with the lead drummer, the marqueur.
Malia Mkolajk, a professional Guadeloupean dancer, regularly attends léwòz nights. She describes being inside the circle, saying, “You feel like you are creating art on the spot, like you’re flying—like everything is happening the way it’s supposed to and you're letting go.”
Such cathartic movement and emotions are a hallmark of the Gwoka culture. Some believe that Gwoka, as an artistic and spiritual practice, was introduced by high initiates on the plantations as a provision against the growing darkness within the enslaved soul. Drums became tools more than musical instruments; their beat—the heart of life itself. Playing the drum, dancing in the circle, and singing became the contrast to an oppressive society that wanted you to be paralyzed. The spirit of rebellion and resistance is embedded in the rhythms, lyrics, and aesthetics of the léwòz.
“The Gwoka dancer is not looking for grace in the European sense of the term,” explains Guadeloupean writer Ernest Pépin. “It is a broken dance; a dance of vertigo where the man staggers as if he’s going to fall and then stands up again at the last moment to reaffirm his will to hold on against all odds.”
THE ARTISTIC RESISTANCE
From the 1960s up until the 1980s, Gwoka became the tune of nationalist resistance to neo-colonialism, with figures like Konkèt, Lockel, and Vélo paving the way for reappropriation of Gwoka into Guadeloupean culture after a long period of Western-imposed shame attached to the art form.
As colonial France forbade the use of drums on the island, the symbol of the léwòz as a circle of resistance grew more potent. The drum became an instrument of light against darkness and is still, today, a symbol of the never-ending struggle against a system that marginalizes non-Western cultures and their practices.
Western conceptions of artistic beauty have historically been rooted in ideals of harmony, proportion, and order, establishing physical and metaphysical distance between the art and the observing subject. A ballet recital, for example, is showcased as a spectacle—a performance for passive spectators.
Gwoka, however, embodies a different approach to art, one where beauty stands on the shoulders of communal pain, rising above the differences. The great mystery of Gwoka is solved as we stand in the electric comfort of the léwòz—in the now, us, and we.
Clara Zimban is a French writer and aspiring journalist of Guadeloupean descent. Currently studying Politics and International Relations at the University of Bristol, she explores the intersections of culture and politics in her work. Passionate about storytelling and global affairs, she contributes to various online publications and local news outlets in France and beyond. Through her writing, Clara seeks to amplify diverse perspectives and engage in critical discussions on society, identity, and governance. With a sharp analytical voice and a deep curiosity for world affairs, she is carving her path as a dynamic and insightful journalist.
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