Viviane Gauthier

Her formal training appears to have started in the early 1950s when Lavinia Williams, an African-American following in the footsteps of Katherine Dunham came to teach in Port-au-Prince at the invitation of the Haitian government. Gauthier was around 34. She is said to have served as Lavinia Williams' assistant at the Haitian Institute for Folklore and Classic Dance in the 1950s and 1960s. Williams, a Katherine Dunham trainee, had been courted away from her dance studio in Brooklyn, New York, by President Paul Magloire around 1951 to start the school in Port-au-Prince which would train Gauthier along with other Haitian dance stalwarts such as Lynn Williams Rouzier and Régine Montrosier-Trouillot.

Gauthier describes the teaching style of the woman Haitians affectionately called Lavinia as emphasizing discipline in precision of movement, rigidity of the torso and adherence to proper dress-code. She founded the Viviane Gauthier Dance School at some point later down the line, and probably not in 1950 as alleged by some sources. Her dance school which taught children as young as 4 and adults was known as a ready supplier of dancers to most folkloric dance productions in Haiti. In addition to Haitian folkloric dance, the school offered training in ballet and modern dance techniques. Her studio was the oft-filmed and photographed veranda or her Victorian gingerbread house in Pétion-Ville, a suburb or Port-au-Prince. She performed for the first time in Europe at the age of 53.

Viviane (or Vivianne) Gauthier (March 17, 1918 – June 1, 2017) was a Haitian dancer and teacher of Haitian folkloric dance who studied Haitian folklore with Katherine Dunham-trained Lavinia Williams of which she is considered the heir. She eventually opened the Viviane Gauthier School of Dance in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.