Dance Dialogues Africa

There are a large number of new dance-artistic works coming from the African continent featuring a broad range of aesthetic approaches. While many young artists are settling in Europe because of more favourable production conditions, new dance centres in Africa are making significant contributions to the artistic development there. The project “Dance Dialogues Africa” established long-term productive collaboration between institutions and predominantly young, promising artists in Germany and African countries. The project wanted to promote networking between them, strengthen the artistic development of the dance scene and production structures in African countries, and encourage more German artists to participate in cooperative projects and guests performances in Africa. The exchange between German and African institutions received support from five competence centres on the African continent: the Congolese Studios Kabako, the Donko Seko in Mali, the Mozambican Institute CulturArte, the South African Vuyani Dance Centre and Ness El Fen in Tunisia.

“Dance Dialogues Africa” kicked off in April 2012 with the guest performance “More, more, more ... future” by the Congolese choreographer Faustin Linyekula at the tanzhaus nrw. Since then, the project has held seminars, workshops, artists’ laboratories and other guest performances. In 2013 each of the African centres produced at least two co-productions directed by internationally renowned choreographers, such as Gregory Maqoma, Panaibra Gabriel Canda, Kettly Noël and Koffi Kôkô.

The latest productions were shown in Bielefeld, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Münster and other cities from 21 March to 12 April 2014. The Festival Tour – featuring more than 50 productions – focused public attention to the contemporary dance productions initiated by “Dance Dialogues Africa”. The Tour was accompanied by documentary films, discussions, lectures and concerts.

In the future, the exchange project would like to involve even more European and African partners in its networking efforts.

Director: Stefan Schwarz, Project coordinator: Judith Müller-Willems
Partners in Africa: CulturArte in Maputo/Mozambique, Donko Seko in Bamako/Mali, Ness El Fen in Tunis/Tunisia, Studios Kabako in Kisangani/Dem. Republic of Congo, Vuyani Dance in Johannesburg/South African
Partners in Germany: DansArt Tanznetworks in Bielefeld, Hellerau – European Centre of the Arts in Dresden, Kampnagel in Hamburg, Theater im Pumpenhaus in Münster. The project administrator is the tanzhaus nrw in Düsseldorf.

Festival Tour stops

Düsseldorf 21 Mar. – 6 Apr. 2014
Dresden: 21 Mar. – 29 Mar. 2014
Münster: 22 Mar. – 12 Apr. 2014
Bielefeld: 29.Mar. – 2 Apr. 2014
Hamburg: 2 Apr. -12 Apr. 2014