Gregory Maqoma Industries (GMI) and UJ Arts & Culture proudly present an extraordinary double bill bringing together two seminal voices of African and diasporic contemporary dance: Germaine Acogny’s Joséphine and Gregory Maqoma’s new creation Bantu. Produced by Productions Sarfati with the support of CHANEL and Muse Art Foundation, this programme stages a powerful encounter between legacy and futurity, memory and resistance, the archive and the living body.
This African premiere follows the world premiere of Joséphine at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris on 24 September 2025 and launches Bantu, a major international co-production created in 2026.
This double bill is a rare convergence of African and diasporic brilliance — a ceremony of memory, defiance and return, offered through two towering figures of contemporary dance.
JOSÉPHINE
Choreography: Germaine Acogny, Alexandra Seutin
Performer: Germaine Acogny
Staging & Dramaturgy: Mikaël Serre
Original Music: Fabrice Bouillon-LaForest
Lights & Set Design: Fabiana Piccioli, Enrico Bagnoli
Costumes: Paloma
Technical Director: Oliver Hauser
Stage Manager: Barry Strydom
Communication Manager: Isabelle Deville
Visual Content Creation (Video & Photo): Maxime Dos
Producer: Vony Sarfati
World Premiere: Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris – 24 September 2025
Joséphine is a production of Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.
Joséphine summons an electrifying dialogue between two iconic women: Germaine Acogny and Joséphine Baker. Through choreographic friction rather than lineage, the work interrogates the colonial gaze, exoticism, resistance and reinvention.
Joséphine Baker — born in the United States and canonised in France, embodied colonial fantasy while simultaneously subverting it, later becoming a figure of anti-racist struggle. Germaine Acogny, born in what is now Benin, dismantles those same imaginaries through a grounded, lived, politically charged body. Her dance is a terrain of memory, refusal and becoming.
In the words of dramaturg Mikaël Serre, the stage becomes “a critical arena, a ritual of ”repair”, activating what bell hooks called the oppositional gaze and what Achille Mbembe names a politics of the living. This is not a celebration, but a traversal; not a reproduction, but an act of resistance.
BANTU – Creation 2026
Concept & Choreography: Gregory Maqoma
Music Composition: Yogin Sullaphen
Costume Design: Black Coffee Designs
Lighting Designer: Denis Hutchinson
Movement Analyst: Shanell Winlock Pailman
Technical Director: Oliver Hauser
Stage Manager: Barry Strydom
Communication Manager: Isabelle Deville
Visual Content Creation (Video & Photo): Maxime Dos
Producer: Vony Sarfati
Dancers:
Rodolphe Allui, Anique Ayiboe, Profit Lucky, Amy Collé Seck – École des Sables, Senegal.
Nathan Attie Botha, Roseline Olga Wilkens, Noko Moses Moeketsi, Tshepo Neolan, Molusi,Nkosana Mphumeleli Fakude, Monicca Ngwakwane Magoro, Gilbert Goliath, Thabang Albert Mdlalose – Vuyani Dance Theatre, South Africa.
Bantu is a co-production with The Joyce Theater New York, Théâtre de la Ville de Paris, and Théâtres de la Ville du Luxembourg.
The word Bantu, from the root meaning to be human: becomes more than origin. It is inheritance, revolution, bone-memory. In this new creation, Gregory Maqoma offers a choreographic reclamation of humanity itself, danced by a generation who feel the urgency of remembering what was denied yet never destroyed.
Here, the body is archive. Movement becomes testimony. Through rhythm, rupture and ritual, the dancers speak languages stored in the spine, the skin and the breath, insisting on dignity, on interconnectedness, on ubuntu: I am because we are.
Bantu is not classification but cosmic inheritance, a work that heals, disrupts and restores the human being as a living, breathing force of possibility.
Joséphine and Bantu are produced by Productions Sarfati with the support of CHANEL and Muse Art Foundation.
Performance Dates:
30 & 31 January 2026
Venue: Keorapetse William Kgosietsile Theatre, UJ Arts Centre, Auckland Park
Book your ticket for only R150.
About Gregory Maqoma Industries (GMI)
Gregory Maqoma Industries (GMI) is a premier creative enterprise dedicated and Specialist in movement for dance, theatre, fashion, opera, film, tv broadcast, music and producing live shows for events, national and International touring. Advancing African contemporary dance, artistic innovation through theatre productions, cultural preservation, events management. Founded by internationally acclaimed choreographer Gregory Vuyani Maqoma, the company serves as a hub for creative excellence, providing a platform for artistic expression, education, and cultural storytelling through dance, performance, and interdisciplinary collaborations.
About UJ Arts and Culture
UJ Arts & Culture, a division of the Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture (FADA) produces and presents world-class student and professional arts programmes aligned to the UJ vision of an international university of choice, anchored in Africa, dynamically shaping the future. A robust range of arts platforms are offered on all four UJ campuses for students, staff, alumni, and the general public to experience and engage with emerging and established Pan-African and international artists drawn from the full spectrum of the arts.
In addition to UJ Arts & Culture, FADA (www.uj.ac.za/fada) offers programmes in eight creative disciplines, in Art, Design and Architecture, as well as playing home to the NRF SARChI Chair in South African Art & Visual Culture, and the Visual Identities in Art & Design Research Centre. The faculty has a strong focus on sustainability and relevance, and engages actively with the dynamism, creativity, and diversity of Johannesburg in imagining new approaches to art and design education.