海角大神

Senegal revives African culture festival, 33 years later

Senegal is hosting the World Festival of Black Arts and Culture for the first time since 1966, when it showed potential for significant growth. Today, the president says, 'it's time to believe again.'

|
Aliou Mbaye/Panapress/Newscom
Dancers performed during the opening ceremony of the World Festival of Black Arts and Culture in Dakar, Senegal.

鈥 A local, slice-of-life story from a Monitor correspondent.

Senegal鈥檚 capital city, Dakar, has repainted mosques, reopened stadiums, lined thoroughfares with African flags, and erected acres of glimmering resident lofts for the 2,000 African artists coming to the first World Festival of Black Arts and Culture in 33 years.

For the West African government, the festival is a showpiece to assert Senegal鈥檚 rank as a leading destination for African art and intelligentsia. For its thousands of attendees, flying in from at least 70 countries, it鈥檚 a 21st-century edition of an old traveling gala, founded during the heyday of Pan-African thought: a venue where African art can be not just exhibited, but exalted.

The last time Dakar hosted the festival, in 1966 (the second festival was held in 1977 in Lagos, Nigeria), it seemed possible to imagine the world鈥檚 poorest continent transforming itself into a single steel-girded, hydroelectrified superpower: the United States of Africa. Four difficult, coup-marred decades later, that vision remains a fetching idea that inspires more college papers than actual policy.

But at the lavish opening ceremony of the 21-day festival on Dec. 10, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade told his audience that it鈥檚 time to believe again. 鈥淲e must keep working,鈥 the octogenarian crowed to a stadium crowd.

Alongside an acrobatic dance reenactment of African history, Baba Maal, the Sahel region鈥檚 most renowned pop griot, recounted the history of the medieval kingdom of Mali, a once-flourishing civilization. Then he offered a forecast: 鈥淭he third millennium is going to flow out of Africa.鈥

For visiting academics meeting on topics such as 鈥淭he Role of Women in the African Renaissance鈥 and 鈥淵es or No: Were the Ancient Egyptians Black?鈥 the festival offers more than a parade of singers, slam poets, filmmakers, and novelists. It鈥檚 also a chance for this diverse continent to create an African art canon with a common narrative of the continent鈥檚 moment in the world, says David Murphy, a professor of Senegalese art at the University of Stirling in Scotland.

L茅opold Senghor, Senegal鈥檚 philosopher-president (1960-80) who founded the festival, 鈥渨anted to present Africa as a source of rich, high civilization, some-thing like Greece,鈥 says Professor Murphy. Considering the expenses Senegal鈥檚 current president has accrued to trumpet a new African Renaissance 鈥 including a $27 million statue to the concept 鈥 it鈥檚 fair to wonder if the modern Greece could afford such a gala.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
QR Code to Senegal revives African culture festival, 33 years later
Read this article in
/World/Global-News/2010/1231/Senegal-revives-African-culture-festival-33-years-later
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
/subscribe