Touba Dialao, Senegal — Twenty-five dance companies from across Africa descended on a small fishing village in Senegal over the weekend for the African Dance Biennial, the continent’s largest showcase of contemporary African dance.
Dozens of dancers in bright orange, green and blue costumes were jumping and falling in the sand of Toubab Dialao, a sun-baked village about an hour from the capital Dakar.
Founded in 1997, the African Dance Biennial has spent nearly three decades rotating through African cities – most recently Maputo, Mozambique in 2023 – with the aim of increasing the visibility of choreographic work on the continent.
The three-day event, which kicked off late Sunday night, was held at the École des Sables, or School of Sands, in Toub Diallo.
The school has in recent years become one of the continent’s foremost professional dance training institutes. It was founded in 1998 by Germaine Acogny, who is widely considered the mother of African contemporary dance. Its open-air sand studio, a hallmark of Acogny’s nature-based teaching philosophy, has attracted dancers from dozens of countries for intensive courses that blend its native contemporary technique with traditional West African and black modern dance styles.
The École des Sables gained international attention in recent years as the home of the first African production of Pina Bausch’s “The Rite of Spring”, which toured globally from 2021 to 2025.
The biennium comes as the school faces an uncertain future. A billion-dollar deep-water port project under construction just south of the fishing village, overseen by Dubai Port World, threatens to expropriate surrounding land, including property acquired by the school to protect its natural ecosystem. Arts institutions in the area have formed an association to oppose the development.
