DanceAfrica 2024: Salifou Lindou

MoCADA is honored to participate as a BAM DanceAfrica 2024 art partner. Meet Salifou Lindou, the visual artist MoCADA selected to represent Cameroon in this year’s festival, and see his electrifying work on view at BAM throughout the celebration.

Held annually in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, this year the weekend-long festival, which will spotlight the African nation Cameroon from May 24-27, will feature indoor and outdoor performances including live music, a film series, master classes, education programs, and an outdoor bazaar.

Each year BAM’s DanceAfrica festival offers a special presentation of visual art to coincide with their schedule of music, dance, and cultural performances. Curated by MoCADA, this year’s visual artwork will center “La Course, 2,” a mixed-media art work by Cameroonian artist Salifou Lindou, as  curated by MoCADA Executive Director + Chief Curator, Amy Andrieux.

This special piece will be on view from May 6 – June 9 in the lobby of BAM’s Peter J. Sharp building.

“La Course 2” by Salifou Lindou explores the perceived conflict between notions of challenge and play. The mixed-media work, done in acrylic, pastel, and collage on canvas, depicts a scene of running and playing, with gestures that express intense determination. The two shapes dance across the canvas, evoking momentum and urgency, and seem to merge into one, symbolizing the unity of the individual working to surpass past efforts.

Trips to the local palace museum inspired Salifou Lindou, born in Foumban, Cameroon, in 1965, to become a largely self-taught multidisciplinary artist. In 1998, he co-founded the design collective Kapsiki Circle, a collective of Cameroonian artists dedicated to introducing the arts to the next generation of creatives in Douala by organizing exhibitions, projects, and residencies. The collective focuses on public art and workshops with youths. Lindou’s work has been featured in the 1998 Dak’Art Biennale, and in prestigious international fairs including Art Paris (France), Investec Cape Town (South Africa), and 1-54 New York (US). His first solo museum exhibition is on view now at the Ettore Fico Museum in Turin, Italy.

This Memorial Day weekend, the nation’s largest festival dedicated to African diasporic dance and music opens up Brooklyn’s stages to the ancestral history and vital living artistry of Cameroon. Now in its 47th year, BAM DanceAfrica explores the past and present of Central African history, arts, and culture, as symbolized by the calabash—a vessel of mystical, practical, and cultural significance.

BAM partners with longtime neighbors, first-time visitors, the DanceAfrica Council of Elders, and our partners at Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA), and The Billie Holiday Theatre (formerly Restoration Arts) to create the nation’s largest festival of African dance—and Brooklyn’s unofficial start to summer. Featuring traditional dance and music from Cameroon, classes, workshops, late-night dance parties, visual art, FilmAfrica’s dazzling cinematic series, and the iconic outdoor bazaar, experience the sights, sounds, and magic of Brooklyn’s most unmissable celebration.