Festival of African arts and culture returns to Yale for third year

Africa Salon, a festival celebrating contemporary African arts and culture, returns to Yale for its third year this April 21-22.

Through live performances by acclaimed artists, discussions with academics, screenings of documentaries, food tastings, and more, the festival “aims to humanize and expose the richness, complexity, and beauty of contemporary African arts and culture,” according to its website.

“The festival line-up truly spans an incredible range of mediums and topics,” said Dianne Lake, Woodbridge Fellow in the Office of International Affairs (OIA) and curator of Africa Salon. “I really hope that attendees will be able to indulge in and celebrate modern African arts and culture in a meaningful and invigorating way.”

Lake organized the event with the Yale Africa Initiative and the support of sponsors like the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies and the Council on African Studies, among others.

Ifeanyi Awachie, the previous Woodbridge Fellow in OIA, founded the festival in 2015. 

“I recognized that we could have more programming where cutting-edge African artists could come to campus and engage with students in the same way that we invite experts on African politics and development and a number of similar subjects,” Awachie said in an interview last year about the origins of Africa Salon.

Related story: “Talking modern Africa: A conversation on Africa Salon 2016

Events are free, but attendees are encouraged to register ahead of time. For more information, visit the salon’s website.