The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is launching the first ever virtual DanceAfrica experience. Created in 1977 under Founding Elder Chuck Davis’s artistic direction, the nation’s largest celebration of African and African Diasporic dance, music, and culture will return with new content reimagined for the digital space. BAM’s DanceAfrica 2021 will pay homage to the ancestral energy of Haiti, a metonym for Black liberation.

The 44th annual DanceAfrica Festival will bring together dance companies from Haiti and around the United States for unforgettable virtual performances around the theme Vwa zanset yo: y’ap pale, n’ap danse!, in Haitian Creole, or “Ancestral voices: they speak…we dance!” DanceAfrica Artistic Director Baba Abdel R. Salaam commissioned pieces from HaitiDansCo in Cap-Haitien and three American companies—Àṣẹ Dance Theatre Collective and The Fritzation Experience in Brooklyn, and Rara Tou Limen in Oakland.

The virtual program features four dance premieres inspired by the characteristics of the lwa, spirits of Haitian Vodou. Each company pays tribute to a different lwa through traditional dance—Parigol, Agwe/Li Sirene, Banda/Guede, Petwo, and Nago. The dances manifest the lwa, bringing messages of faith, hope, and healing, and staying connected to the ancestors, and giving praise and gratitude. The performances embrace Haitian culture’s strength, healing, and resilience through deep, rich, vibrant-colored scenes and landscapes depicting traditional dance movements, costumes, masks, headwear, and elements from the Vodou tradition.

The Festival will begin streaming on May 29 at 7pm. The digital DanceAfrica Bazaar featuring over 20 vendors offering crafts, food, and fashion launches today on BAM’s website. Master classes for families and adults; and a choreographers’ conversation begin on on May 19. Details on the DanceAfrica visual art exhibition, the FilmAfrica series, and a late-night dance party will be announced at a later date. 

DanceAfrica 2021 Programming:

• May 5—June 14 DanceAfrica Digital Bazaar

• May 19 DanceAfrica 2021: Choreographers’ Conversation

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• May 29 DanceAfrica Community Workshop

• May 29 DanceAfrica 2021 (Performance) Vwa Zanset Yo: Y’ap Pale, N’ap Danse! “Ancestral Voices: They Speak… We Dance!”

• May 31 DanceAfrica Adaptive Workshop

• May 31 DanceAfrica Master Class

*more to be announced

Tickets (pay what you wish) for DanceAfrica 2021 dance performance go on sale on Thursday, May 13 at noon.