Germaine Acogny: Convective Heat and Ground-Shift in Contemporary African Dance

Abstract

Chapter 4 studies the work of Senegal-based artist Germaine Acogny, often described as the “Mother of Contemporary African Dance,” with specific reference to her formulation of the Technique Acogny, her pedagogic strategies, choreography, and performance. The chapter offers specific examples of her movement aesthetic and choreography to show her continuous and negotiated engagement with history and Tradition. It argues that her internal shifting of balletic movement principles with Africanist interventions creates a practice of “generative pollution” nudging open space for aesthetic difference. Finally, it discusses the evolving worldviews framing her work, through the possibilities of postcoloniality, African modernities, globality, and aesthetic contemporaneities, as a mode of convective heat transfer, such that Acogny’s personal embodiment serves to energize the broader field of Contemporary African Dance.