African concert dance is rooted in the National Dance Company movement of the 1960’s. The movement was used, in part, as an ideological tool by emerging African nations—a way of telling the story of African nationalism. In the swiftly changing currents of urbanization and globalization of the late Twentieth century, contemporary African concert dance has emerged to tell a new story. This is a story of change, globalization, creative energy, and power that contests Afropessimism, while illuminating deep challenges to the everyday and extraordinary people taking part in the creativity explosion across the continent. The researcher’s fieldwork in Africa, Europe, and the United States, including interviews and cooperative artistic projects with leading African artists, producers, and journalists, is the basis for the discussion. Far from reinforcing (or inventing) a status quo of tradition or nationhood, contemporary African dance grows with increasing vigor and diversity in response to internal and external artistic, cultural and political influences. It upsets or challenges many cultural conventions and stereotypes, reframing rapidly shifting relationships and identities in its wake. The late 1990’s saw the creation of such companies as the Ivorian women’s ensemble TchéTché, and the Senegal based Compagnie Jant Bi. Today, TchéTché’s performances continue to revise notions of African womanhood through a hurtling, almost shocking physicality denying any notion of subservience. Other work, such as the dance theatre of Compagnie Jant Bi renders complex cross-cultural movement portraits of upturned cultural encounters, war, and alienation.
Review of the work of diverse African choreographers, producers and journalists living in and outside of Africa sets forth the discussion, analysis, and growing appreciation of the movement’s scope. South African Sello Pesa flatly rejects connecting the nomer, “African” to his choreography, while Burkinabe Souleyman Badolo deeply embraces the nomer in his work. While Congolese Faustin Linyekula creates a reflective dance theatre commenting with burning irony on “Africa.” Finally, founding mother of Senegalese contemporary dance, Germaine Acogny, is committed to intercultural explorations, in spite of criticism from some Africans and non-Africans who would prefer she seek an exclusively African-based aesthetic. While the bulk of African dance exists in the neo-traditional and popular realms (both African and MTV), contemporary concert dance merits recognition for the potentiality of its artistic and social impact on both African and world stages. Germaine Acogny has said, “…this is only the beginning” of the story.