For years, Guinea's main dance company brought glory to the west African state, touring the globe for sell-out performances. Today, ageing and forgotten, it struggles to train a new generation of dancers 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.
It all started in the early 1950s in Paris, capital of Guinea's then colonial power, when three friends joined forces in the heady days of growing African independence movements. Guineans Fodeba Keita, a poet and dancer, and Facelli Kante, a guitarist, and Cameroonian singer Albert Mouangue, wanted to promote African identity and traditions, telling stories through dance, song, percussion and gymnastic displays.
In 1958, a proud yet impoverished Guinea, newly independent from France, began investing heavily in culture under its charismatic first president, Ahmed Sekou Toure, a socialist and ardent promoter of the arts. Back home, Les Ballets Africains members were made state employees with the government catering to their every need. "Until the death of Sekou Toure (in 1984), we were like the pampered children of the revolution," artistic director Hamidou Bangoura, 74, said.
An acrobat by training, Bangoura has spent 56 years with the troupe, joining in 1960 as Les Ballets Africains began its meteoric rise. "We did the five continents," he said, electrifying spectators in the grandest theatres of Paris, Moscow, New York and elsewhere. And when they performed in Guinea, "absolutely everyone came" to revel in the music of the ancient balafon, a type of wooden xylophone, the haunting kora, a 21-string lute native to West Africa, the high-octane dancing and the dazzling array of outfits steeped in folklore.
But the United States was "our biggest market", Bangoura reminisced. They not only raked in money but rubbed shoulders with black American superstars like Oscar-winning actor Sidney Poitier, boxing champion Muhammad Ali and "Godfather of Soul" James Brown. 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.
Things began to change with Toure's death. Ballets and orchestras became difficult to maintain as the government promoted privatisation, with attention shifting to individual artists and the scene moving to Paris where Guinea’s most famous performer Mory Kante was based. The long tours of old were gradually cut down and the last time they left Guinea to perform abroad was in 2010, to China.
There are now 45 members of Les Ballets Africains, many of them pensioners. The veterans of 30, 40, and 50 years in the troupe refuse to give up, training unpaid young newcomers from Monday to Thursday, come rain or shine. Culture Minister Fodeba Isto Keira said that there is a plan to relaunch artistic ensembles like Les Ballets Africains, "but to do that we have to modernise the workforce".
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This story in 30 seconds
• Les Ballets Africains was the biggest cultural institution not just in Guinea but, as their name suggests, in the whole of Africa
• In the early 1950s, Guineans Fodeba Keita, a poet and dancer, and Facelli Kante, a guitarist, and Cameroonian singer Albert Mouangue, wanted to promote African identity and traditions, telling stories through dance, song, percussion and gymnastic displays
• They electrified spectators in the grandest theatres of Paris, Moscow, New York and elsewhere
• In America, they not only raked in money but rubbed shoulders with black American superstars like Sidney Poitier, Muhammad Ali and James Brown
• In the 70s, ballets and orchestras became difficult to maintain as the government promoted privatisation, with attention shifting to individual artists
