Bakanal de Afrique Goes Global, Online!
UPCOMING EVENTS
Bay Area hosts the premier Pan Afro-Urban Arts & Culture Festival Nov 6-30, 2020
(Oakland, CA- October 7, 2020) - Afro Urban Society (AUS) is pleased to announce that the fifth edition of our biennial festival Bakanal de Afrique (BdA), the world’s premier celebration of Pan-African Urban culture, community and creatives, will go down on November 6-30, 2020. In response to COVID-19, the festival will be presented primarily online with select outdoor on-the-ground physical-distanced events. Attendees will be able to access the various experiences through an online portal at bakanaldeafrique.com.
Involving over 60 SF Bay Area creatives, and over 45 national and international artists, the month-long, mostly-digital program will be a dynamic endeavor; BdA will present more than 80 new videos, audios, visuals, 3-D art, performance projects, artist talks, and interactive activities by some of the most innovative and impactful creatives, cultural producers, and masterminds from 12 countries and more than 40 cities across the Americas, Africa, and Europe.
“Our 2020 theme 'Mi Soon Come' explores urban transportation and its intersections with culture, class and citizenship; a multilayered theme especially in a time of ‘shelter-in-place’, global Black uprising, and drastic economic upheaval,” says AUS Executive Artistic Director and BdA Chairman of Import & Export Nkeiruka Oruche. “Bakanal de Afrique is creating a universe to transport to, one that celebrates the multiplicity of ‘place’ and ‘travel’ as it relates to us. Black people are naturally used to this concept; whether that means that your family migrated from Louisiana to the SF Bay Area; you’re a Cuban dancer who now calls Nassau home; you’re ethnically Igbo from Enugu but born and raised in Lagos; or you’re first gen Kenyan American, who grew up in Jo-burg, and are now in London for grad school. It is a multimedia experience, that although virtual, feels just like home.”
The 2020 BdA festival is supported by its dedicated community of individual and organizational partners including California Arts Council, Priority Africa Network, Dance Mission, Dancer’s Group, Akonadi Foundation, Alliance for California Traditional Arts, and EastSide Arts Alliance
A few of the creatives featured in this year’s festival include: Yung Phil & The Turffeinz (SF Bay Area, United States), Master Percussionist Mestre Mario Pam (Ilê Aiyê) y Tambores do Mundo (Bahia, Brazil), Jamaican Choreographer/Creative Tango Leadaz (Los Angeles, United States), Eritrean American Filmmaker Sephora Woldu (San Francisco, United States), Theater Producer & Actor Caroline Ngorobi (Mombasa, Kenya), Photographer Agaba Solomon Peabo (Kampala, Uganda), Audiovisual Artist Mal the Oddity (New York, United States), Singer/Songwriter Dom Jones (Oakland, CA USA), Congolese Dance Star BlackCherry (Paris, France), Documentary Photographer Adetona Omokanye (Lagos, Nigeria), Visual Artist Yvonne Shortt (New York, United States), Textile Artist Afatasi The Artist (San Francisco, United States), Ivoirien multidisciplinary artist Maureen Douabou (Paris, France), Illustrator Nzilani Simu (Nairobi, Kenya), and Visual Artist Nico Phooko (Johannesburg, South Africa)
Tickets are now available on the festival’s websitehere, with day passes starting at $5 and a full festival pass starting at $50. The full slate of events and experiences will be announced in the coming weeks. For more overall information on the festival and its programs, visit bakanaldeafrique.com.
About
Bakanal de Afrique (BdA), is a multidisciplinary Afro Urban festival by Afro Urban Society that brings us together across cultures, and showcases new, emerging and underground urban art, culture and people through performance, workshops, visual media and conversations. From its birth in 2009, Bakanal de Afrique intended to be a phenomenon that stretched the length and breadth of the world, and united Urban Africans in a unique way. BdA 2020 will be mainly virtual.
Afro Urban Society is an incubator and presenter of Afro-Urban performing and visual arts, culture, media, and social discourse. Through original and curated arts & event production, popular arts education and cultural engagement, we ignite our communities to make meaningful connections, be inspired, and live vibrantly.
Press Contacts
Ugo Edu
BdA Literary Editor and Content Agent
bakanaldeafrique@gmail.com
Kanukai Chigamba
Program & Communications Manager, Afro Urban Society
For Calendar Editors
WHAT: Bakanal de Afrique Pan Afro-Urban Arts & Culture Festival
WHEN: Nov 6th – 30th
WHERE: online at bakanaldeafrique.com
TICKETS: $5+ Day Pass / $50+ All Access Pass
BOX OFFICE/INFO: info@afrourbansociety.com / 415-320-6534
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