The Jant-Bi Company was set up in 1998. It consisted of dancers who had participated in the first professional workshop for traditional and contemporary African dance. This was held in Toubab Dialaw (Senegal) from January to March 1998 and was organized by Germaine Acogny, the artistic director of the Jant-Bi Association.
The company is part of the École des Sables , the International Center for Traditional and Contemporary African Dance. The school’s objective is to educate African dancers and to function as a meeting point and a place of exchange for dancers and choreographers from the African Diaspora and from different cultures throughout the world. Based on this background, the company reflects the centre’s work and policy, and encourages choreographers from different countries to fuse their culture and dance styles with the essence of African dance.
Jant-Bi’s main objectives are
- to provide dancers from all over Africa with professional training,
- to stimulate communication and collaboration between African dancers, choreographers and companies,
- to act as a platform for young African dancers,
- to encourage dialogue with the dance world outside of Africa,
- to function as a centre where people from all over the world can discover the diversity of African dance,
- and to operate as a meeting place where dancers and choreographers can be introduced to their African colleagues so that they can exchange ideas, study the essence of African dance and collaborate on projects.
As a network Jant-Bi is developing internationally and discovers new artistic approaches by setting up exchange programs with other dance institutions throughout the world, generating new forms of expression that are based on these programs, creating ‘fusion projects’ that link dance with other art forms such as theatre and organizing international conferences to discuss dance as it is deployed in the fields of the arts, society, education, health and research.
Jant Bi is one of the participating organizations in the production of the Sahel Opera. In March 2005 the workshops for the Opera took place in L’école des Sables.
