They call her the “mother of African contemporary dance” and not without reason. There is no doubt that this Senegalese artist is one of the essential names when it comes to the art of movement on the continent. But Germaine Acogny is much more: she is a free mind, indeed, a mind that dances who is able to express her reflections in the language of movement. She is a self-conscious woman, a mother, a storyteller and the granddaughter of a Yoruba priestess, but she is also the creator of one of the most prestigious dance centres in Africa and of a company that takes African dance around the world. She is Senegalese and French and was already a household name when she returned to Senegal, where she has been based since 1995. Yes, the story of Germaine Acogny and her family is powerful enough material to give rise to a show that, in addition to dance, involves theatrical and audiovisual elements. This is why the creator contacted the playwright and director Mikaël Serre, who proposes a production in which fragments of Euripides’ Medea are heard, in an attempt to bring Africa into dialogue with Western classical culture. It is an account of present-day Africa that fuses movement, theatre, video and poetry with tragedy. Sébastien Dupouey, who has already used this discipline for theatrical performances on many occasions, including collaborations with the director Mikaël Serre, is in charge of the video. We will thus witness a tough and uncompromising dialogue, expressed in dance, words and breathing. Maybe it is still possible to get to the place where it all begins...
Senegalese and French, Germaine Acogny is considered “the mother of contemporary African dance” worldwide. She was artistic director of Mudra Afrique, created in Dakar by the choreographer Maurice Béjart and the politician and poet Léopold Sédar Senghor, then president of Senegal. With her husband, Helmut Vogt, she created the École des Sables, an international centre for traditional and contemporary dance, inaugurated in 2004. It is a space for exchange and professional training for African dancers and others from all over the world. Germaine Acogny has regularly created her own dance solos since 1998 and choreographies for her company JANT-BI since 2004, which have been touring successfully all over the world. She received a Bessie Award in New York for the choreography Fagaala by the company JANT-BI in 2007. This year, 2021, she won a Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale for her entire body of work.
A production from JANT-BI, Senegal.
In co-production with Les Théâtres de la Ville du Luxembourg, Théâtre de la Ville (Paris) and the Institut Français (Paris).
Residency and co-production: La Ferme du Buisson, scène nationale de Marne-la-Vallée.
Le Centquatre residency (Paris)
Conception and staging: Mikaël Serre Choreographer: Germaine Acogny Choreography assistant: Patrick Acogny Scenography: Maciej Fiszer Costume design: Johanna Diakhate-Rittmeyer Music composed and performed by: Fabrice Bouillon “LaForest” Video: Sébastien Dupouey Lighting design: Sébastien Michaud Technical direction: Marco Wehrspann Executive Production Grec 2021: Agnès Blot/Músiques Creuades Texts: Togoun Servais Acogny (Les récits d’Aloopho); Germaine Acogny; Mikaël Serre (staging and adaptation of the texts of Euripides’ Medea)
