Danse Afrique Danse

by | Nov 1, 2010 | Mali, Stories, W. Africa

I was planning on telling a tale of Ali Farka Toure’s family, fulani herders, sandy streets, bloody toilet bowls, dust, amoebas, and a tortuous quatre quatre ride with only one ass cheek on a seat. That story will come next. Right now I want to write about dance. There is an African dance festival in Bamako at the moment and for the past three days, I’ve either been watching dance or dancing myself.

The festival is called Danse Afrique Danse and it is part competition, part showcase. It has been mostly disorganized and chaotic, but incredible just the same. Yesterday, most of the dancing took place on the streets of Bamako. Dance troupes took over the road. Street kids danced around police. Market women danced with bananas on their heads and babies on their backs. It was jubilant. It was democratic. All dance festivals should take place in the street.

danse danse afrique

Because of strikes in France (or so I’m told), there are only a few printed schedules of the festival circulating. Of the ones I’ve seen, all have been inaccurate. I was fortunate to meet a woman who is friends with the festival organizer and she has become my lifeline over the past several days. Without her I would not have been able to track down the parade in the photos and videos below.


The parade featured Dogon dancers, Wassoulou hunters, percussion ensembles, contemporary dance troupes, Tuaregs, sheep, and anybody who wanted to join. The police somehow sealed off a bridge and a few thousand people danced across the Niger River. This was awesome.

I ended up dancing with a mixed group of dancers and spectators, falling to the back of the parade for a time. A Fulani women flashed a smile, extended a beautifully tattooed hand, and then we were dancing with sheep between our legs and a percussion ensemble bearing down on us. I’m not a good dancer, but it didn’t matter. I was also drunk.


I mentioned in the hostel owner interview post that I was lodging with a Burkinabe dance troupe. They were part of this parade. As much as I’ve come to resent them for repeatedly shutting all the windows in the dormitory, I very much enjoyed their West Side Story-Esque performance on a hot street in the middle of Bamako. See below:

danse danse afrique bamako mali

danse danse afrique bamako mali

Terrifying alien Dogon puppets.

danse danse afrique bamako mali

Why not get silly on top of a sotrama?

danse danse afrique bamako mali dance festival

The Tuaregs were not the most animated dancers, but if you smiled at one of them they would start clapping. The rest would then follow suit.

Hunters. You can check out the Sekouba Traore video in this musical tour of Mali to hear exactly what these guys sound like.

moto traffic in Bamako, Mali

These are the people who were not happy about the parade.

More dance content to come, but first Niafunke, trials in the north of Mali, amoebas, and drawing camels with a Tuareg

Andddddd let’s keep our fingers crossed for Cote D’Ivoire and their election results!!

4 Comments

  1. Randy Puzzitiello

    Just awesome phil. Love seeing posts like this. Even here with our rather easy lives, we still dont find the time to stop and enjoy ourselves quite like this. Would love to see something like this happen stateside, on a big scale. Keep up the amazing work, stay safe and try to stay healthy. Hope all is well. Best wishes.

    Reply
    • phil

      randall, thanks for the comment. Yeah I would like to see these things happening in the states as well. I’m buying you a used white benz. It will arrive via container ship by Christmas. Exterior looks great. Have no idea about under the hood.

      Reply
  2. Andi

    Soooooo cool! What an event to witness. Where is the video of you dancing drunk???

    Reply
    • phil

      Haha, yeah I suppose I could have handed the camera off. Missed opportunity.

      Reply

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Timbuktu and Back - [...] here is another video from Danse Danse Afrique. This was shot inside of a sotrama (you can read about…
  2. Plans, Goals and Dreams for Upcoming West Africa Trip - [...] with limited time and Timbuktu is on my bucket list, but when I show up in Bamako there is…
  3. What’s Next for me - [...] the Haitian born, Bamako based dancer and choreographer who was the director of last year’s Danse Afrique Danse, Africa’s…

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