by Gaiaitalia.com
According to AFP, Guinea’s main dance company “Le Ballets Africains” after years of glory touring the globe for sell-out performances, is today ageing and forgotten, struggling to train a new generation of dancers and facing a very uncertain future: “Les Ballets Africains was the biggest cultural institution not just in Guinea but, as their name suggests, in the whole of Africa,” said national culture director Jean Baptiste Williams, “They made Guinea proud on stages around the world.”>
Yet now, the stars once lauded on Broadway have no dedicated performance space, no financing and have not worked outside of the country in years after performing sold-out show all around the world, particularly on Broadway and all around the USA.
The troupe’s success generated income for the new republic back home. “We put clothes on the back of our soldiers, bought instruments for our musicians,” Mariama Toure, a Les Ballets Africains dancer since 1976, recalled with pride. Even the Guinea national football squad got new kits thanks to their shows.
(15 settembre 2016)
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