Combining capoeira, hip hop dance, traditional Afro-Colombian dances, the Colombian company founded in 1997 by the dancer, choreographer, teacher and researcher Rafael Palacios works to make visible the importance of the African legacy in the construction of this mysterious country. . Deeply anchored in the present, the play La Ciudad de los Otros (The City of Others), created in 2010 on the occasion of the 159th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Colombia, takes us on a journey between the West Coast and East coast, between Vallenato and Bullerengue, two Afro-Colombian styles. To wild percussive rhythms, twelve performers and three musicians paint a portrait that is both joyful and serious of their origins and their daily lives.

Rafael Palacios is a Colombian choreographer and dancer dedicated to exploring the languages ​​of Afro-traditional, contemporary and urban dance. His experience as a dancer in Africa and Europe inspired him to create the Sankofa company, with which he created a vast repertoire of works that have been presented around the world, notably in Colombia, Jamaica, France, Spain, Canada, Brazil and Burkina Faso. Throughout his career, he has strived to develop training processes for teachers and dancers of all levels, as well as children.
He was appointed National Dance Advisor and Advisor to Colombia's Afro-descendant Communities from 2009 to 2011, and oversaw the training of all dance instructors at the Ministry of Culture from 2007 to 2013. He received the national award of dance from the Ministry of Culture in 2008 for his work San Pacho ... Blessed! and, as director of the Steps in the Earth project, he received recognition in 2010 from the UN for his contribution to the social inclusion of Afro-descendants in Latin America. He was invited in 2012 to be the artistic director of the dance performances organized in honor of the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena and was also the choreographer of the opening ceremony of the World Games in Cali in 2013.

Born in 1977, Fabien Plasson is a video director specialized in the field of performing arts (dance , music, etc).

During his studies at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Lyon (joined in 1995) Fabien discovered video art. He was trained by various video artists (Joel Bartoloméo Pascal Nottoli , Eric Duyckaerts , etc).
He first experimented with the creation of installations and cinematic objects.

From 2001 to 2011, he was in charge of Ginger & Fred video Bar’s programming at La Maison de la Danse in Lyon. He discovered the choreographic field and the importance of this medium in the dissemination, mediation and pedagogical approach to dance alongside Charles Picq, who was a brilliant video director and the director of the video department at that time.

Today, Fabien Plasson is the video director at La Maison de la Danse and in charge of the video section of Numeridanse.tv, an online international  video library, and continues his creative activities, making videos of concerts, performances and also creating video sets for live performances.

Sources: Maison de la Danse ; Fabien Plasson website

More information: fabione.fr

Sankofa Danzafro's mission is to "dance to be heard, rather than to be seen." Artistic director Rafael Palacios' motivation is to rewrite the history of black communities through the eyes of those directly affected, Afro-descendants in Colombia and beyond. For him, history was always written by the oppressor, while the oppressed had no voice. This is why, using the voices of Sankofa dancers and musicians, for more than 20 years he has been creating choreographies aimed at retelling the story from a point of view that has been ignored for centuries. “Sankofa,” meaning “return to the root,” is more than a word, it is an African philosophy that proposes that the past is a keyhole through which one can see the present, and be able to envision the future. This thought has guided Sankofa Danzafro since its creation in 1997.
Through various educational projects and creative works, Sankofa Danzafro has sought to build a bridge between Afro-Colombian peoples and the African continent. The company channels Afro-Colombian ancestral roots in the creation of works developed within the framework of everyday life, traditional and contemporary. Sankofa's works are a combination of poetic dance built on the ideas of social connection, personal growth and positioning local cultures within the national dynamic. The company has performed in Brazil, France, Peru, Spain, Jamaica, Burkina Faso, Canada, Uruguay, China and the United States, and received the 2008 National Dance Award from Ministry of Culture of Colombia for San Pacho... Blessed! In 2010, the company also received a mention from the United Nations for its contribution to the social inclusion of Afro-descendants in Latin America, for its Steps in the Earth project.