For Franco-Senegalese choreographer Germaine Acogny, dance is a powerful medium that can bring people together and tell compelling stories. A group of young dancers from the African diaspora is applying her techniques in an innovative project created through workshops in Paris and Dakar.
This group of four women and one man has come together for the first part of a special workshop guided by Alesandra Seutin, a Zimbabwe-born choreographer and teacher of the Germaine Acogny Technique of contemporary African dance.
The project is entitled Air de Temps (“Spirit of our Times”), referring to the many social issues faced on the African continent, and indeed the world, in both the past and the present day. Through movement, the group conveys scenes of revolution, struggle, protest, anger, joy and unity.
“We are telling many stories, the stories of people who march for different reasons, who have been marching for years, calling out for support, calling out for help,” Seutin told RFI, during the Africapitales festival in Paris.
“Currently, there are a lot of events in the world that are calling for marches, for protest, for injustice, for justice, for freedom, for the right to speak. There’s joy, but there’s also rage, and there’s also peace and calm and resurrection.”
The message comes across loud and clear thanks in part to a powerful soundtrack, developed by Seutin and her collaborators. There are spaces in the recording where the dancers themselves sing, chant, clap and stamp their feet.
The dancers were recruited through a series of online auditions and exchanges, with Seutin asking them to complete certain tasks. Besides their dance skills, Seutin was also looking for how the dancers revealed their personalities and their ability to work as a team.
‘The world needs beauty’
The Germaine Acogny Technique is a fusion of African dance movements and Western influences, drawing inspiration from the natural world.
The spine is at the centre of a bodily cosmos and drives the movements, which alternate between jerky and smooth.
“When you move, it’s really interconnected with the space. It’s inclusive and it’s also collaborative,” explains Seutin. “You move the spine and you move your torso and you move your pelvis. It’s not locked. It’s always moving. It’s also accessible to everyone in a way. It’s at different levels. So that’s what makes it so special.”
Germaine Acogny’s visionary technique is taught in the school she founded – L’Ecole des Sables (“School of the Sands”), situated in Toubab Dialaw, 50 kilometres outside Dakar, Senegal.
It is a place where physical expression can replace words and become a true universal language, a concept that earned Acogny the accolade “the mother of contemporary African dance”.
Acogny trained in classical Western dance in Europe, but she knew that her body type did not fit these techniques and so she invented her own.
She is proud of the universal spirit of the dance. Her motivation from the beginning was to “unite Africa through dance”, with each dancer proud of their own personal heritage, but not afraid to learn from others.
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“I want them to work together in solidarity, especially in the context of the world we live in today. The world needs beauty,” she told France 24, just prior to giving a masterclass with students attending the festival in Paris.
Since it opened in 2004, Ecoles des Sables has trained hundreds of dancers from around the world and held residencies and masterclasses, as well as building an impressive performance repertoire of modern dance pieces.
‘Putting their hopes into dance’
Thanks to the tutelage of choreographers such as Alesandra Seutin, the next generation of dancers is taking flight under the banner of Jant-Bi II, the name of Acogny’s organisation.
Seutin, who splits her time between projects in Senegal and Belgium, will accompany the group of young dancers on the next stage of their journey – a month-long workshop at the school in Senegal where they will complete Air de Temps alongside other performers.
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They will also learn business skills to help them build their future careers in the performing arts. It’s a “difficult” field, according to Acogny, who hails the “courage” of the young African dancers making their mark despite lack of funding.
“They are putting their hopes into dance and that’s extraordinary,” Acogny says. “If young people are confident in themselves, they can change the world with dance.”
