A moving body is a carrier of knowledge, memory and story. To remember is to activate dialogues in motion, articulating messages and ideas in considered movements.
In her latest work, Senegalese dancer-choreographer and celebrated matriarch of African contemporary dance, Germaine Acogny reignites the spirit of American and French cultural icon Josephine Baker in an embodied discourse. The piece titled Joséphine had its world premiere at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris in September 2025, marking almost 100 years since Baker’s debut at the same theatre in October 1925.
The African premiere of the work returns Acogny to South Africa since her last appearance at the Digital Jomba! Contemporary Dance Experience in 2020 where her solo Somewhere at the Beginning was screened. (Her last physical performance was the Dance Umbrella showcase of her solo Songook Yaakaar (Facing up to Hope) in 2013). It also brings her into conversation with iconic dance maker and thinker Gregory Maqoma, who will be launching his newest work, Bantu. Joséphine and Bantu will be presented as a double bill at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) Arts and Culture Centre this week. Both works are produced by Productions Sarfati with the support of Chanel.
Josephine Baker was an American-born dancer, singer and actress who found superstardom and a home in France through her electrifying and exuberant performances. She influenced global culture and fashion with her idiosyncratic style (think the famous banana skirt of her 1926 Folies Bergère debut) which she used to subvert European exoticisation to her control. She was a staunch civil rights activist who spoke up against systemic racism; she refused to perform for segregated audiences and was a French Resistance spy during World War 2. She is also known for adopting 12 children of diverse ethnicities calling them the “Rainbow Tribe”.
On premiering Joséphine on African soil, Acogny says, “Presenting this piece here has a particular resonance in a country where the black body has not always been placed in a position of equality. Within the work we developed the figure of the woman artist and free woman, the woman as mother and the woman as militant and fighter. A woman confronted with the Western gaze, while at the same time having contributed to the liberation of white women’s bodies.”
Joséphine is the convergence of Baker’s immortal influence and Acogny’s embodied politics, heritage and legacy. Born in Benin in 1944, Acogny moved to Dakar, Senegal, when she was 10. Her subsequent exposure to classical ballet and the Graham technique in Paris and New York became the impetus for the creation of a dance language that centres her African form and ancestry. Just as Baker subverted the colonial gaze, Acogny turned the Western rejection of her flat feet and tall West African feminine body into her power.
The Germaine Acogny technique of her dance company, Jant-Bi and her globally recognised dance school and centre, École des Sables (Place in the Sand) in Senegal teaches dancers to innovate and move purposefully in their bodies, histories and identities. Acogny’s most powerful works include Fagaala (2004) which works with the contemporary Japanese art form of Butoh and a company of Senegalese male dancers to explore and interpret what it meant to be a woman living through the Rwandan Genocide. Somewhere at the Beginning (2016) is an autobiographical piece that denounces the deep-seated effects of colonial Christianity and the suppression of Acogny’s grandmother’s Yoruba spirituality. With Joséphine she injects her defiant grace and power into Baker’s story.
The costumes— which help add nuance and glamour to the piece in line with Acogny’s vision — are designed by Chanel-owned grand flou atelier, Paloma. They take on an extended meaning on Acogny’s body with African and French references that merge luxury with grounding. The work is a traversal of memory, legacy and defiance.
“The first costume is a black satin dress, fluid and light, following the movement of the body. It reflects a sense of lightness in relation to mourning and memory,” Acogny says. “Under this black dress, I wear a skin-toned bodysuit. This near-nudity represents vulnerability and exposure. It is accompanied by a beaded belt worn at the hips, honouring African women through traditional waist beads.
The dressing gown evokes a fusion between the showgirl and the domesticated mother. It expresses the constant dichotomy Josephine Baker had to face: being at once a woman, an artist and a mother. The final costume is inspired by the Amazons of Benin. Its military cut and more rigid materials, cotton and canvas, convey the image of a strong, committed and fighting woman.”
Engaging with this is Maqoma’s Bantu which carries strong ideas of reclamation, remembering and archival. These ideas are also critical in his upcoming new work, Genesis which has its world premiere in Cape Town in February.
This is important for Maqoma because “reclamation and archiving are acts of resistance and of love,” he says. “Dance is one of the most fragile archives we have. It lives in bodies, in breath, in fleeting gestures that disappear once the performance ends. Yet, within those fleeting moments, entire histories and philosophies are carried.
“I am deeply concerned with how African bodies have been written out of dominant archives or framed only through colonial lenses. Reclamation is therefore about asserting that our bodies are libraries, that our movement vocabularies carry knowledge systems that predate colonial modernity and that dance is a site of memory, prophecy and critique.”
Bantu recalls the inherent meaning of ubuntu (humanity). It is performed by a youthful company of dancers from École des Sables and Maqoma’s Vuyani Dance Theatre with costumes by regular collaborator Jacques van der Watt of Black Coffee.
“The word ‘Bantu’ has been historically weaponised, flattened into a linguistic category, politicised under apartheid, and stripped of its philosophical depth. In conceptualising Bantu, I wanted to return to its spiritual core: ntu: the essence of being, humanity and relational existence,” says Maqoma.
“Bantu asserts presence. It speaks to dignity, interconnectedness and the urgency of reclaiming humanity in a world that continues to fracture it through race, gender, class, and power. Choreographically, I approached Bantu as a living archive: a gathering of generations, bodies, rhythms and philosophies that insist on complexity and agency. It’s a provocation that the past is not dead and we are the custodians of what has been erased.”
Catch Joséphine and Bantu at UJ’s Keorapetse William Kgositsile Theatre at the Auckland Park Kingsway Campus on January 30 and 31. Tickets are available through Quicket.
