R Magazine, Ex-TeenArt_Issue 1_Authenticity Ap. 2014 | Page 42

We are not in a Zulu village, forgotten
in time, but at the Association for the
Preservation of African Cultural Heritage (ACOFIN) in Aného, a coastal city
in Togo, a small country sandwiched between Benin and Ghana. This is precisely
the second to last day of the eighth edition of the Black Divinities Festival, created in 2006 by the ACOFIN, which itself
was created in 2005.
For the past eight years, this festival has
been a unique place to exchange and
share in order to encourage and defend
the African traditional identity and the
diaspora. Year after year, more and more
people participate and attend, thanks
to ACOFIN’s values which are: keeping
promises, consistency, trust between
partners, a passionate team, respecting
festival attendees as well as the environment and maintaining control over
the event.
Thus, in the eight years of its existence,
the Festival has hosted: the Bahia de Salvador de Bahia folk ballet (Brazil), Caretas de Acupe de Santo Amaro (Brazil),
the Dogons (Mali), Poro (Ivory Coast),
Hope 2000 (Ivory Coast), Djilili Company
(Martinique), Kossiwa Company (France),
The Thousand Flavours Company (Switzerland), Roberta Tirrassa Company
(Italy), the Kondonas of Pya (Togo), the
Shy of Accra (Ghana), the Bassar virgin
girls and fire dancers, Sakpatè of Ouidah
(Benin), Hiébièsso of Ouidah (Benin), the
designer Mame Fagueye Bâ (Senegal).

TEEN’ART Magazine - Roots

Man
l’Afrique arc en
The most recent edition of the
Festival, in 2013, had the theme
“Mandela, Africa rainbow and its
treasures”, featuring the Zulus of
South Africa. Despite the tragedy
that their country, and indeed,
Africa in general, they blew the
audience away with their dancing and chanting. The other
countries who participated were
Benin, Burkina Faso, the Ivory
Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, France,
Haiti, and Brazil.