Germaine Acogny, conférence Corpus Africana 2018
2018 - Director : Carlès, James
Choreographer(s) : Acogny, Germaine (Senegal)
Present in collection(s): Conférences/interviews/documentaires
Germaine Acogny, conférence Corpus Africana 2018
2018 - Director : Carlès, James
Choreographer(s) : Acogny, Germaine (Senegal)
Present in collection(s): Conférences/interviews/documentaires
Corpus Africana 2018
From October 27 to November 9, 2018, the Erasmus Mundus EuroPhilosophie University Consortium and the Center for Philosophy of Law of the Catholic University of Louvain are organizing at the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès, as part of the research seminar “Thinking about decolonizations”, in collaboration with the Festival Danses et Continents Noirs of the James Carlès Choreographic Center, under the title “Corpus africana: Current philosophies and dances of Africa and its diasporas” an important international meeting aimed at bringing to the heart of European university research; in the field of Arts and Letters; knowledge and study of “Africana philosophy”, contemporary African and Afro-descendant choreographic knowledge.
Acogny, Germaine
Germaine Acogny is one of the best known personalities of the African contemporary dance scene, including the field of teaching and development of contemporary dance in Africa.
Senegalese and French, she participated from 1962 till 1965 at the formation at Simon Siegel’s school (the director was Ms Marguerite Lamotte) in Paris and received a diploma in physical education and harmonious gymnastics. Then, she founded her first dance studio in Dakar, 1968. Thanks to the influence of the dances she had inherited from her grandmother, a Yoruba priest, and to her studies of traditional African dances and Occidental dances (classic, modern) in Paris and New York, Germaine Acogny created her own technique of Modern African Dance and is considered to be the “mother of Contemporary African dance”.
Between 1977 and 1982 she was the artistic director of MUDRA AFRIQUE (Dakar), created by Maurice Béjart and the Senegalese president and poet Leopold Sedar Senghor. In 1980, she wrote her first book entitled “African Dance”, edited in three languages. Once Mudra Afrique had closed, she moved to Brussels to work with Maurice Béjart’s company, where she organised international African dance workshops, which showed great success among the European students. This same experience was repeated in Africa, in Fanghoumé, a small village in Casamance, in the south of Senegal. People from Europe and all over the world travelled to this place.
Together with her husband, Helmut Vogt, she set up in 1985, in Toulouse, France, the “Studio-Ecole-Ballet-Théâtre du 3è Monde”.
After having been away from the stage for several years, Germaine Acogny made her come back as a dancer and choreographer in 1987. She worked with Peter Gabriel for a video clip and created her solo “Sahel”. Other choreographies follow. Her solo “YE’OU”, created in 1988, tours on all continents and wins the “London Contemporary Dance and Performance Award” in 1991.
In 1995, she decides to go back to Senegal, with the aim of creating an International Centre for Traditional and Contemporary African Dances: a meeting point for dancers coming from Africa and from all over the world and, a place of professional education for dancers from the whole of Africa with the aim to guide them towards a Contemporary African Dance. The construction of the Centre -also called “L’Ecole des Sables”- was achieved in June 2004. Although, since 1998, three-month professional workshops for African dancers and choreographers were organised every year. About 40 dancers from all over Africa met, exchanged and worked together each time.
In 1997, Germaine Acogny became Artistic Director of the “Dance section of Afrique en Creations” in Paris, a position she held until September 2000. During this time, she was responsible for the Contemporary African Dance Competition, an important platform for young African choreographers.
In 2005, she was invited as regent at UCLA (University of Los Angeles).
Her solo “Tchouraï”, created in 2001, choreographed by Sophiatou Kossoko was successfully touring until 2008. She has presented it in France (Theatre de la Ville, Paris), Germany, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Italy, the US (New York, Chicago) Brazil and in China (first Contemporary Dance Festival in Shanghai).
In 2003/2004, she created the piece “Fagaala”, for her company JANT-BI, based on the genocide in Rwanda. It was co-choreographed with Kota Yamazaki/Japan for 7 African dancers, a fusion between Butoh and traditional and contemporary African Dances. It had already three very successful tours in the US, and was performed in Europe, Australia (Melbourne Festival, Sydney Opera House) and in Japan.
In 2007, she and Kota Yamazaki received a BESSIE Award (New York Dance and Performance Award) for “Fagaala”.
Later that year, the great challenge was the choreographic part of the OPERA du SAHEL, an important African creation, initiated and produced by the Prince Claus Fund in Holland. It premiered in Bamako in February 2007, followed by performances in Amsterdam and Paris and a first African Tour in 2009.
In 2008, another choreographic work was organised as a collaboration between Jant-Bi company (7 male dancers) and Urban Bush Women company (7 Afro-American female dancers) from New York. This new creation “Les écailles de la mémoire – Scales of memory” was created by her and Jawole Zollar, the artistic director of Urban Bush Women and had great success during several touring in the USA and in Europe. Her creation, the solo “Songook Yaakaar” had its Premiere at the Biennale de la danse in Lyon in September 2010.
In 2014 the French choreographer Olivier Dubois created a solo piece for Germaine Acogny “Mon élue noire – Sacre no.2” based on the original music of “Le Sacre du printemps.” In 2015 her new solo creation “Somewhere at the beginning”, came out in collaboration with theatre director Mikael Serre, a creation that combined dance, theater and video. The premier took place at the Grand Theatre de la Ville du Luxembourg in June 2015. She continues to collaborate with international schools and Dance Centers and regularly teaches master classes. From January 2015 she submitted the Artistic Direction of the Ecole des Sables to her son Patrick Acogny.
In 2020, Germaine Acogny and Helmut Vogt made the decision to hand over the role of Artistic Direction and custodian of the Ecole des Sables to two of its trusted Alumni that are also holders of the Acogny Technique Diploma: Alesandra Seutin and Wesley Ruzibiza, to work alongside Paul Sagne, who has been working and evolving within Ecole des Sables for the last 15 years and who has now been appointed Administrative Director.
In February 2021, Germaine Acogny was Awarded with “The Golden Lion for Lifetime achievement” in dance by the La Biennale di Venezia.
Source : Ecole des sables 's website
More information : ecoledessables.org
Carlès, James
Since 2016, James Carlès has made the choice to make available to the public a selection of its videos.
Centre chorégraphique James Carlès
Two methodologies transmitted by James Carlès and recognized internationally are part of the artistic and pedagogical project of the center :
- R.E.S.E.T. : Movement techniques with multiple applications for dancers and the person: form, health, expression, creativity, physicality are the assets of this method.
- James Carlès Dance Methodology : Choreographic technique for artists and thinkers. It allows dancers to develop their awareness and mastery of movement (flow), their gesture and their infinite technical and choreographic applications.
More than 2100 students have been trained in the span of 20 years, of which :
- 40% became artists/dancers
- 10% are working in cultural administration, in distribution or production
- 40% became teachers
- 10% are working in the body and well-being professions
Corpus Africana 2018
Artistic direction / Conception : James Carlès
Animal Kingdom, participant's words
Roots of Diversity in Contemporary Dance
Noé Soulier Rethinking our movements
CHRISTIAN & FRANÇOIS BEN AÏM – VITAL MOMENTUM
Vlovajobpru company
40 years of dance and music
Indian dances
Discover Indian dance through choreographic creations which unveil it, evoke it, revisit it or transform it!
The “Nouvelle Danse Française” of the 1980s
In France, at the beginning of the 1980s, a generation of young people took possession of the dancing body to sketch out their unique take on the world.
Body and conflicts
A look on the bonds which appear to emerge between the dancing body and the world considered as a living organism.
The national choreographic centres
James Carlès
les ballets C de la B and the aesthetic of reality
Meeting with literature
Collaboration between a choreographer and a writer can lead to the emergence of a large number of combinations. If sometimes the choreographer creates his dance around the work of an author, the writer can also choose dance as the subject of his text.
When reality breaks in
Do you mean Folklores?
Presentation of how choreographers are revisiting Folklore in contemporary creations.
States of the body
Explanation of the term « State of the body » when it’s about dance.
Improvisation
Discovery of improvisation’s specificities in dance.
Pantomimes
Presentation of Pantomimes in the different types of dance.