AS WE ARE : Joséphine / Bantu
Germaine Acogny / Gregory Maqoma
Gathered together for the AS WE ARE evening, Joséphine and Bantu thus weave a dialogue around memory, exile, inheritance and the reappropriation of identity.
In a deeply moving solo, Germaine Acogny, a pioneer of Afro-contemporary dance, summons the memory of Joséphine Baker. She brings forth the artist, the activist and the free woman, revealing the echoes between two trajectories that each defied how others looked at them and what they were expected to be.
Gregory Maqoma answers her with Bantu, a creation performed by artists from the Vuyani Dance Theatre and the École des Sables. Driven by a magnetic energy, the work is traversed by the traces history leaves in bodies and by what continues to be passed on despite the ruptures.
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OASI, DI, unemployment benefit, PRM, under-26s, Vernier residents, 20ans20francs
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Meeting with Germaine Acogny and Gregory Maqoma
Date: Tuesday 27 October 2026
Audience: from age 14
Duration: 15 minutes
Format: discussion in French and English, after the performance
This post-show talk invites the audience to share their impressions, ask questions and discover what goes on behind the scenes of Joséphine and Bantu. Germaine Acogny and Gregory Maqoma will look back on their careers, their creative processes and their choreographic writing, as well as on the themes of memory, inheritance and identity that run through their works.
Joséphine
Choreography
Germaine Acogny, Alesandra Seutin
Performer
Germaine Acogny
Staging and dramaturgy
Mikaël Serre
Original music
Fabrice Bouillon-LaForest
Lighting and set design
Fabiana Piccioli, Enrico Bagnoli
Costumes
PALOMA, Maison d‘art résidente du 19M
Bantu
Concept and choreography
Gregory Maqoma
Music
Yogin Sullaphen
Costumes
Black Coffee Designs
Lighting design
Denis Hutchinson
Movement analyst/architect
Shanell Winlock-Pailman
Dancers
Rodolphe Allui, Anique Ayiboe, Profit Lucky, Amy Collé Seck de l’École des Sables du Sénégal.
Nathan Attie Botha, Roseline Olga Wilkens, Noko Moses Moeketsi, Tshepo Neolan Molusi, Nkosana Mphumeleli Fakude, Monicca Ngwakwane Magoro, Gilbert Goliath, Thabang Albert Mdlalose du Vuyani Dance Theatre en Afrique du Sud.
Credits
The evening "AS WE ARE" – Joséphine/Bantu is produced by Productions Sarfati.
With the support of CHANEL.
Producer
Vony Sarfati
Technical direction
Oliver Hauser
Lighting
Denis Hutchinson
Stage management
Barry Strydom
Communication
Isabelle Deville
Video and photo production
Maxime Dos
World premiere | Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris – 24 September 2025
Joséphine is a Théâtre des Champs-Élysées production, with the support of CHANEL.
Paloma, an art house specialising in blur, supported Joséphine by designing and creating the costumes worn by Germaine Acogny on stage.
World premiere | Johannesburg UJ Art & Culture – 30 January 2026
Bantu is a co-production by The Joyce Theater New York, the Théâtre de la Ville de Paris and the Théâtres de la ville du Luxembourg.
In the News
Arte
Le Monde
Germaine Acogny
Germaine Acogny, regarded as the ‘mother of contemporary African dance’, is an internationally renowned Franco-Senegalese dancer, choreographer and teacher
Gregory Maqoma
Born in Soweto on 16 October 1973, Gregory Vuyani Maqoma discovered dance in the late 1980s, whilst seeking a way to escape the political tensions that characterised his environment.
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