Senegalese and French Choreographer, professor, Artistic director, actress.

Since 1998, The Ecole des Sables in Senegal, created by the choreographer-dancer Germaine Acogny and her German husband Helmut Vogt, organises professional dance trainings for young dancers from all over Africa. The Center contributes through these trainings to the development of African contemporary dance. The specific technique of Modern African dance created by Germaine Acogny and comparable to the Martha Graham Technique, plays an important role. Germaine Acogny is considered as the Mother of Contemporary African Dance. The Center is both a place of encounter and exchange for dancers from Africa and all over the world and the home of the Company Jant-Bi, which is the mirror of the work and spirit of the Center and tours very successfully world wide. EXTENDED BIOGRAPHY Germaine ACOGNY (choreographer) is Senegalese and French in origin and founded her first dance studio in Dakar in 1968. Thanks to the influence of the body movements she had inherited from her grandmother, a Yoruba priest, and to her learning of traditional African dances and Occidental dances (classical and modern), Acogny gave birth to her own dance technique; in 1980, she wrote a book on her technique entitled, African Dance, published in German, English and French. Between 1977 and 1982, she was director of Mudra Afrique (Dakar), created by Maurice Béjart and the Senegal's President L.S. Senghor. When Mudra Afrique closed, she moved to Brussels to work with Maurice Béjart's company and organized numerous international African dance workshops, which enjoyed great success among European audiences. This same experience was repeated in Africa and in Fanghoume, a small village in the Casamance region of southern Senegal. Acogny dances, produces choreographies and teaches all over the world, becoming a real emissary of African Dance and Culture. Together with her husband, Helmut Vogt, she founded the "Studio-Ecole-Ballet-Theatre du 3e Monde" in 1985. In 1987, after a brief respite from performing, she worked with Peter Gabriel on a video clip and created her solo Sahel. In 1995, she decided to return to Senegal, with the aim of creating an International Centre for Traditional and Contemporary African Dances. The center was created to serve as a meeting point for dancers coming from Africa and from all over the world, and as a place of education for dancers from the whole of Africa that could guide them towards a Contemporary African Dance.
In 2018, she stars in YAO, the feature comedy, along side Omar Sy.