Germaine Acogny, regarded as "the mother of contemporary African dance" worldwide, is one of the best-known figures on the African dance scene, particularly in the field of teaching and developing 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. She has thus become a true emissary of African dance and culture.