Who: DanceAfrica Spirit Walkers, Women of the Calabash, the Billie’s Youth Arts Academy Dance Ensemble, Siren — Protectors of the Rainforest, DJ YB, more
What: DanceAfrica Festival 2024
Where: BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, BAM Rose Cinemas, 30 Lafayette Ave.
When: May 24-27, many events free, Gilman dances $22-$95, film screenings $16
Why: The coming of summer means the arrival of one of the best festivals of every year, BAM’s DanceAfrica. The forty-seventh annual iteration focuses on Cameroon, with four companies performing “The Origin of Communities / A Calabash of Cultures” in BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House: DanceAfrica Spirit Walkers, Women of the Calabash, the Billie’s Youth Arts Academy Dance Ensemble, and Siren — Protectors of the Rainforest, highlighting movement and music from the Central African nation. Curated by artistic director Abdel R. Salaam, the festival also includes the DanceAfrica Bazaar with more than 150 vendors, dance workshops and master classes in Brooklyn Bridge Park and the Mark Morris Dance Center, Salifou Lindou’s art installation La course 2, the Council of Elders Roundtable: Legacy & Preservation, and a late night dance party with DJ YB.
This year’s FilmAfrica screenings and cinema conversations range from Jean-Pierre Dikongué Pipa’s 1975 Muna Moto and Mohamed Challouf’s The Many Moods of Muna Moto to Jean-Marie Téno’s Colonial Misunderstanding, Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s 2005 Les Saignantes (The Bloodettes), and Gordon Main’s 2023 London Recruits, all followed by Q&As with the directors.
“This year’s DanceAfrica is a journey into the heart of Cameroon, driven by a quest to explore the ancient roots of African culture and answer profound questions about humanity’s earliest origins,” Salaam said in his mission statement. “How timeless is Africa, and was it the land of the most ancient beings? What were the origins of humanity, thought, consciousness, art, culture, creativity, and civilization?”
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]