Intensive program

Acogny Technique

Intensive Program '25

Jul 13 – Jul 20, 2025

The Program This immersive program offers dancers the opportunity to refine their skills, connect with cultural heritage, and grow personally. Intended for professional dancers and advanced students , the Technique Acogny Lab creates an all-encompassing experience in the tranquil surroundings of Orsolina28. Participants will live, dance and connect as a community in an environment that fosters both technical discipline and creative freedom. Led by Germaine Acogny and Technique Acogny teachers and artists Alesandra Seutin and Wesley Ruzibiza, this intensive integrates rigorous training with creativity, offering a transformative journey for dancers eager to deepen their connection to the technique and explore new avenues of artistic expression.

Artists

  • Germaine Acogny

    Program Director | Choreographer

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    Senegalese and French, she participated from 1962 till 1965 at the formation at the Simon Siegel’s school (the director was Ms Marguerite Lamotte) in Paris and received a diploma of physical education and harmonious gymnastics.. Then, she founded her first dance studio in Dakar, 1968. Thanks to the influence of the dances she had inherited from her grandmother, a Yoruba priest, and to her studies of traditional African dances and Occidental dances (classic, modern) in Paris and New York, Germaine Acogny created her own technique of Modern African Dance and is considered as the “mother of Contemporary African dance” Between 1977 and 1982 she was artistic director of MUDRA AFRIQUE (Dakar), created by Maurice Béjart and the Senegalese president and poet Leopold Sedar Senghor. In 1980, she writes her first book untitled “African Dance”, edited in three languages. Once Mudra Afrique had closed, she moved to Brussels to work with Maurice Béjart’s company, she organised international African dance workshops, which showed a great success among the European students. This same experience was repeated in Africa, in Fanghoumé, a small village in Casamance, in the south of Senegal.

  • Alesandra Seutin

    Teaching Artist

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    Alesandra Seutin is an award-winning multidisciplinary performance artist and creator, whose focus is exploring movement as a foundation for theatre, media and site-specific works. An inspirational leader with a multifaceted career spanning two decades, she has reached global audiences through her work as an artistic director, choreographer, performer, mentor, teacher, movement director, dramaturg and writer for performance and music. In 2023, she won the Golden Afro Artistic Award for Dance & Choreography.

    Alesandra Seutin is the Co-Artistic Director of École des Sables alongside Wesley Ruzibiza since 2020. Having further trained at the school herself under Germaine Acogny, Seutin is a worldwide ambassador and teacher of the Acogny technique. In collaboration, Wesley and Alesandra both direct the development of the internationally renowned training programme and performance companies, Jant-Bi Germaine Acogny and Jant-Bi II.

    Alesandra earned her graduate and postgraduate training at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance and Middlesex University in London. The world is her muse and through her creations she comments on social, political, and economic reality with dance, song, and music. The notion of "getting or taking a place" is central to Seutin’s work, as is finding your place in major cultural institutions: the spaces that are not obviously 'yours'.

    She founded her company Alesandra Seutin (formerly Vocab Dance) in 2007 and has steadily built its reputation for creating high-quality, artistic performance. Vocab Dance’s repertoire is diverse with over eleven productions within its catalogue.

    Alesandra Seutin’s work has toured across the UK, Europe and internationally and she has received over 20 choreographic commissions including Sadler’s Wells, KVS, Merce Cunningham Company, Wellcome Collection, Channel 4, Phoenix Dance Theatre and was also guest director for the UK’s National Youth Dance Company from 2019-2021.

    Alesandra is a face of KVS theater in Brussels theater since 2021 and an associate artist with Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London since March 2024.

  • Wesley Ruzibiza

    Teaching Artist

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    Wesley Ruzibiza is a dancer, actor, choreographer, and director. Raised in the Democratic Republic of Congo, he moved to Rwanda, his country of origin, in 1999. He was studying financial management at the National University of Rwanda when he encountered the world of contemporary arts. While observing a dance workshop, the choreographer surprisingly invited him to join the group. He took off his shoes and since that day never left. Ruzibiza holds an African Contemporary Dance and Germaine Acogny diploma. From 2002-2010 he took over the direction of the Dance Department at the University Center of Arts and Drama. Today, he is the

    Artistic Director of the Amizero Kompagnie that he co-founded in 2005 with the National University of Rwanda UCAD, with which he won multiple international awards.
    He is the co-artistic Director of l’Ecole des Sables, an Associate Professor at the Dance and Research Center (CPARC) in Bordeaux, France, and at the Muda Africa Dance School in Tanzania, among others.

SCHEDULE

Detailed schedule

Schedule subject to change

07:30-08:45 a.m. BREAKFAST
08:45-09:45 a.m. GRAVITY FOR DANCERS | HORTICULTURE CLASS
10:00-11:30 a.m.

MORNING CLASS

12:15 a.m. - 01:30 p.m.

ACOGNY LAB

01:30-03:00 p.m. LUNCH
03:00-06:00 p.m.

REPERTORY

06:30-07:30 p.m. GRAVITY FOR DANCERS
07:30-09:00 p.m. DINNER

INFO & APPLICATION


Our intensive courses are experiences meant to be shared, as are our accommodations. All participants are meant to live on campus, where we dance and eat together.

Application Fee: € 40 (non-refundable)
Each application will be considered only for the week(s) for which the applicant applied, it will not be possible to modify, change or add a week once accepted.

Tuition: € 1.500

  • Early bird:
    • By March 14, 2025: € 1.400
    • By March 22, 2025: € 1.450

Tuition includes room and board, classes and shuttle service.

* All applicants will automatically be considered for a scholarship.
** The program is intended for students aged 18 and over.

Cancellation policy

  • In case of cancellation before March 26, 2025, a 90% refund will be made
  • In case of cancellation after March 26, 2025, a 50% refund will be made
  • In case of cancellation after May 3, no refund will be made.

DEADLINES

  • January 28, 2025: Deadline for the submission of an application.
  • March 5, 2025: Announcement of the selected participants.
  • May 5,2025: Deadline for the payment of the registration fee.


*Orsolina28 has the right to cancel the intensive in case of insufficient registrations or force majeure. In such a case, payments received will be fully refunded to all participants. In case of cancellation, Orsolina28 will not be able to refund any travel expenses incurred or international financial transaction costs.

CONTACTS

For more information, you may contact:

  • intensive@orsolina28.it
  • +39 0141916532

SHUTTLE

  • On Sunday, July 13 the O28 shuttle bus will leave from the Torino Porta Nuova train station at 3:00pm.
  • On Sunday, July 20 the O28 shuttle bus will leave Orsolina28 at 10:00am for Torino Porta Nuova.

The ride takes about 1 hour, depending on traffic.

Acogny Technique Jul 13 – Jul 20, 2025
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