PROGRAMME
Eric Acakpo was steeped in the traditional rhythms, songs and dances of Benin since early childhood. Besides membership in several folkloric ensembles, he toured African and European Festivals as a dancer/musician with the Voodoo Brass Band in the early 2000’s.
Important early dance teachers were the Italian choreographer Anouska Brodaks, and the great pedagogue, choreographer, dancer and countryman Koffi Kôkô. He toured Europe, Central and South America as a dancer in Koffi Kôkô’s "Les fueilles qui resiste au vent", a full length dance work. He then worked for Koffi Kôkô as a musician and assistant for several years around Europe.
In 2006 he was the only musician selected to represent Benin in the creation of the show "Africa, mais pas seulement" created and curated by the Association "Melody for Dialogue among Civilizations".
In 2006 he co-founded the cultural Association Sonagnon with the dancer and choreographer Francesca Pedullà. The objective of the Association is to highlight the art and culture of Benin and create opportunities for exchange and research contexts for artists. The Sonagnon Association receives support from the French Institute of Cotonou and from various international organisations, produces training workshops, creative residencies and performance opportunities for local and internationally based artists. The collaboration with Francesca Pedullà also included two co-directed performance projects: "Dialogues Inevitables" and "The Myth of the God Money". This last work toured to Cotonou, Brussels, Genoa, Bielefeld and Berlin.
Since 2012, he and Francesca Pedulla also co-direct the pedagogical initiative Traces, which proposes movement, anatomy, physics and choreographic study for professional dancers. Traces is a collaboration with the Axis Syllabus International Research Network and IRSP of Ouidah. In 2014 and 2015, he taught at the Nomadic College Gamboa, Brazil, at the Rio Centro Centroção, Rio de Janeiro, at the Federal University of Salvador da Bahia, and at the Cultural Center Peterzold of Porto Alegre. Most recently he founded and led the musical project Les Tambours du Benin, with the intention to preserve and transmit traditional Benin rhythms.
06.04.2019
