GOMA DANCE FESTIVAL (GDF), in the DRC, is an annual urban, contemporary and traditional dance event, which brings together various African dancers and international professional dancers, with the purpose of exchanging and benefiting from professional training.

In Eastern D.R. Congo, dancers are talented, but lack professional training. They are all abandoned to their own devices and receive no promotion or support. As they grow up, the majority abandon dance due to lack of promotion, space for expression, or a way to take steps towards a professional career. The Goma Dance Festival makes sense in this complicated context that dancers face.

In 2021, we started a collaboration with Congo DRC in the context of Detours, a connection that solidifies and enriches with time. The hip hop movement is powerful, young and full of energy. The dancers give themselves body and soul to their practice, with a remarkable urgency and abnegation.

During the Detours Festival, we have the privilege to receive each year a delegation of dancers among the best of Goma to animate workshops of African dance and to participate in the battles.

Currently, we are working on the implementation of Work In Progress at the Goma Dance Festival. A first edition of these WIP will take place in 2023 in Goma, after which a Congolese project will be selected for the Detours Festival.

This permanent and solid exchange promises beautiful projects for the future !