DanceAfrica Festival kicks off in Brooklyn
FORT GREENE, Brooklyn (PIX11) — The Brooklyn Academy of Music celebrated its 47th annual DanceAfrica Festival Saturday, which kicked off this Memorial Day weekend.
DanceAfrica is the nation’s largest festival dedicated to African dance and music, according to organizers.
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“African culture is all over the world and in the diaspora, and it’s really important to celebrate it, to know where we are, where we’ve come from so we can really understand where we’re going,” said Coco Killingsworth of the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
One standout part of the weekend-long festival is the DanceAfrica Bazaar, which returned on Saturday. The streets around BAM transformed into a bustling global marketplace, drawing dozens of visitors to Ashland Place and Lafayette Avenue. Festival-goer Darryl Jones said he comes back every year for the good food.
“I love the food,” Jones said. “I like the vendors. I always seem to pick up something. It’s really nice. It’s great for the community.”
Every year, a different African country is celebrated. This year, the festival is paying tribute to the history of Cameroon. The bazaar also showcased more than 150 vendors offering an array of African, African American, and Caribbean goods. Empress Imara is a vendor from Jamaica who came out to sell sugar cane and coconut water.
“We’re a diverse people and once we have to celebrate our ancestors, and the BAM festival is all about culture, craft, food,” Imara said.
Organizers hope festival-goers leave with a deeper appreciation for the diverse cultures of the African diaspora and a renewed sense of connection to their roots.
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