Germaine Acogny Technique
IMPORTANT MESSAGE
This is due to the fact that the world situation we have been facing for the last year has had repercussions on many institutions that support organisations like ours.
As a result we have not been able to secure the funds to cover some of the additional costs that support the highly subsidised training fees available to you.
Since its creation and the opening of its doors, the Ecole des Sables has always fought to nourish, train and, above all, offer the best learning and training conditions to dancers from the continent and elsewhere, making this mission the foundation for the development of the dance profession and the opening up of the dances of the continent to the rest of the world.
For this reason, and out of a concern to offer you quality training, we must now come together, rethink and plan again a two-year workshop with financial integrity and an even stronger programme.
The Germaine Acogny Technique, this mother technique, is the lifeblood of the École des Sables.
We therefore ask for your tolerance and once again your support to continue to raise the Ecole des Sables for the future of dance in the continent. As Germaine Acogny often says, “With you and with dance nothing is impossible”!
We hope to see you soon at the Ecole des Sables, for other programmes. Please accept the assurance of our most sincere greetings.
Thank you for your understanding.
The Direction and Founders.
BACKGROUND
In the different countries of Africa, dance accompanies all rites of passage: births, baptisms, circumcisions, weddings, funerals… Dance is a means for transmitting traditions, the history of regions and peoples. The traditional dances of Africa are an essential part of its non-material cultural heritage, they are the living expression of beliefs and carry the memory of the evolution of its cultures.
Today, dance also responds to a new demand coming from modern civil society.
The dances of West Africa have gained an international visibility through social media, television and musicals. They are now perfomed as an art form that occurs both in villages and in the city as well as on national and international stages. In addition, the dances are taught on all continents of the world in both studio and university courses. And yet, the transmission of dances in an institution is rare in West Africa itself.
Also, in West Africa as elsewhere in the world, dance is not reserved just for professionals on stage. Dance classes are happening in all areas of life, practised by amateurs for well-being, in schools for cognitive enhancement or in the social sector such as prisons, refugee camps, hospitals, and special needs areas, to give only a few examples. There is also a growing offer of dance workshops for adult amateurs who come to Africa from Europe, America or Asia. Faced with these demands, there is a shortage of qualified teachers. Whether by vocation, professional choice or economic necessity, many African dancers move towards teaching without having undergone any training themselves. Offering a program in the Acogny Technique, including somatic approaches to movement and the history of African dances, will make it possible to fill the almost total gap in training in dance pedagogy in West Africa. It will offer to all future teachers of the Germaine Acogny Technique the skills they need to guarantee the quality of their classes.
The objective of this training is to train dance teachers in the Acogny Technique. This technique is the only one on the continent based on principles of traditional African dances adapted to a modern context. This training will bring to the teachers an analytical knowledge of the body in motion, the pedagogy of dance and the history of dances in the world and in Africa in particular in order to prepare them as professional, qualified teachers.
THE TRAINING OFFERS
- training in the Germaine Acogny Technique;
- improving the quality of dance education in West Africa and elsewhere;
- acquiring skills acquired through a certification program;
- developing a remunerative professional activity: the teaching of dance;
- inquiring into an in-depth knowledge of oneself, of one’s body, of one’s own dance;
- recognizing the importance of African dances, both traditional and creative, through quality transmission.
For more information, please download the brochure here:
The training will offer :
– a diploma validating the skills and knowledge acquired,
– upon successful completion of the program, the possibility to teach the Germaine Acogny Technique.
