Skip to main content
Back to search
  • Add to playlist

Songook yaakar [Affronter l'espoir]

Artistic direction and dance performance Germaine Acogny

Songook Yaakaar (Facing Up to Hope) a solo piece with and by Germaine Acogny in collaboration with her “artistic family” Pierre Doussaint, Fabrice Bouillon, Bernard Mounier and Fred Koenig.

After a long career as dancer, choreographer and teacher, worldwilde recognized for her work, her outstanding personality, her charism, her power and elegance at the same time, Germaine Acogny likes to speak again with her body, her gestures, her dance - but not only.

Germaine Acogny also talks and she knows talking as well, and laughing and shouting and whispering. She makes you meet her Africa, its leaders, its people, the today’s life. And shows that there is hope inspite of disasters and ignorance.

Credits

Direction artistique Germaine Acogny Chorégraphie Germaine Acogny et Pierre Doussaint Interprète Germaine Acogny
Musique bande sonore composée par Fabrice Bouillon - LaForest - Création vidéo Fred Koenig - Texte Bernard Mounier - Création costumes Angélique Dielhou - Création lumières Horst Mühlberger

Réalisation vidéo Denis Caïozzi - Production 24 images - Collection Scènes d'écran

Udpating: May 2014

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

Our videos suggestions
03:38

Yvette Chauviré

Fokine, Michel (France)

  • Add to playlist
03:01

Hard to Be Soft

Doherty, Oona (France)

  • Add to playlist
31:26

Montpellier, le saut de l'ange

Bagouet, Dominique (France)

  • Add to playlist
03:00

D.opa! [Dopamines of post-Athenians]

Apergi, Patricia (Greece)

  • Add to playlist
05:56

All the misery in the world

  • Add to playlist
02:02

Odile Duboc, une conversation chorégraphique

Duboc, Odile (France)

  • Add to playlist
02:12

Odile Duboc, une conversation chorégraphique

Duboc, Odile (France)

  • Add to playlist
05:32

Sing Sing

Carlès, James (France)

  • Add to playlist
01:18:58

Heroes

Huynh, Emmanuelle (France)

  • Add to playlist
54:55

Words of dancers

Paroles de danseurs (France)

  • Add to playlist
02:35

ELEMENTEN I - Room

Van Acker, Cindy (France)

  • Add to playlist
03:58

Kafrine - focus

Bulin, Nadjani (Reunion)

  • Add to playlist
11:06

To Hang

  • Add to playlist
19:41

Reine-Claude

Juvanon du Vachat, Martin (France)

  • Add to playlist
03:32

BGirls

  • Add to playlist
03:04

BGirls

  • Add to playlist
33:46

Talking In/To Myself

  • Add to playlist
53:55

My Country Music

Hay, Deborah (France)

  • Add to playlist
01:30:03

Fragments

Bouvier, Joëlle (France)

  • Add to playlist
16:18

Wunsch

Biondi, José (France)

  • Add to playlist
Our themas suggestions

Animal Kingdom, participant's words

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

Yield Variations on dissuasive urban furniture

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

Noé Soulier Rethinking our movements

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

CHRISTIAN & FRANÇOIS BEN AÏM – VITAL MOMENTUM

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

Les Rencontres chorégraphiques internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

Vlovajobpru company

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

40 years of dance and music

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

Indian dances

Discover Indian dance through choreographic creations which unveil it, evoke it, revisit it or transform it!

Parcours

fr/en/

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. 

Parcours

fr/en/

Body and conflicts

A look on the bonds which appear to emerge between the dancing body and the world considered as a living organism.

Parcours

fr/en/

James Carlès

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

les ballets C de la B and the aesthetic of reality

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

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.

Parcours

fr/en/

When reality breaks in

How does choreographic works are testimonies of the world? Does the contemporary artist is the product of an era, of its environment, of a culture?

Parcours

fr/en/

Do you mean Folklores?

Presentation of how choreographers are revisiting Folklore in contemporary creations.

Parcours

fr/en/

States of the body

Explanation of the term « State of the body » when it’s about dance.

Parcours

fr/en/

The BNP Paribas Foundation

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

Maison de la danse

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

Improvisation

 Discovery of improvisation’s specificities in dance. 

Parcours

fr/en/

Dancing bodies

Focus on the variety of bodies offered by contemporary dance and how to show these bodies: from complete nudity to the body completely hidden or covered.

Parcours

fr/en/
By accessing the website, you acknowledge and accept the use of cookies to assist you in your browsing.
You can block these cookies by modifying the security parameters of your browser or by clicking onthis link.
I accept Learn more