Every Memorial Day weekend, BAM the Brooklyn Academy of Music, transforms into the cultural heart of the African diaspora.
Now in its 49th year, DanceAfrica 2026 celebrates Uganda under the theme Umoja/Mirembe/Obulungi — Unity, Peace, Beauty — honoring the East African nation’s past, present, and future.
The festival is anchored by Uganda’s Ndere Troupe, one of Africa’s most celebrated dance and music ensembles, performing May 22–25 on BAM’s main stage.
In the manner of a traditional African Diasporic festival, Artistic Director Abdel R. Salaam has built a weekend that extends far beyond the stage — into the streets, the classroom, the cinema, and late into the night.
The Full Weekend
The festival opens Saturday May 16 with two free events. A Tribute to the Ancestors at 10am features drumming, dance, and a libation ceremony conducted by the DanceAfrica Council of Elders — one of the most spiritually grounded moments in Brooklyn’s cultural calendar. Community Day follows at 1pm at Restoration Plaza, with guest artists and youth performers from the Billie Holiday Theatre Arts Academy.
Main stage performances, headlined by Uganda’s Ndere Troupe, with Asase Yaa African American Dance Theater, DanceAfrica Spirit Walkers, and The Billie’s Youth Arts Academy Ensemble; runs May 22–25. Tickets start at $35.
The Ndere Troupe performs music and dance from multiple Ugandan ethnic traditions including the Baganda, Acholi, and Banyankole. The amadinda xylophone tradition, ngoma drumming, and adungu harp music of Uganda share deep structural relationships with percussion traditions that survived in the Caribbean. The Smithsonian says that the most intact African drum, song, and dance tradition isn’t in Mother Afrika, it lives on in Haiti.
The DanceAfrica Bazaar fills the streets around BAM May 23–25, rain or shine, with more than 150 vendors offering African, Caribbean, and African-American food, crafts, and fashion. Free to attend.
Dance classes in African Diasporic movement and music run throughout the bazaar weekend. Saturday night May 23 closes with a Late Night Dance Party 10pm–2am with DJ YB — The General of Afrobeats — mixing Afrobeats, funk, soul, jazz, and hip hop on the BAMcafé dance floor.
FilmAfrica runs May 22–28, curated by the African Film Festival, presenting contemporary and classic Pan-African cinema focused on Uganda. A free talk, Africa Reframed, with the Center for Brooklyn History takes place Tuesday May 19.
On view through September 30, Ugandan artist Sanaa Gateja’s tapestry Voices of Peace — thousands of beads hand-rolled from post-consumer paper — is presented by DanceAfrica and MoCADA.
The Latin Connection
Ugandans are a Bantu people of East Africa, but the Bantu cultural region stretches from Central Africa and East Africa, all the way down into Southern Africa.
In the Caribbean and Latin America, Bantu rhythms, call-and-response singing, communal dance, and spiritual traditions became: Cuban rumba and conga, Haitian Vodou ceremony and music, Dominican 21 Divisiones and music, Mexican son Jarocho and zapateado, Colombian cumbia and porro, Brazilian candomblé and capoeira, Uruguayan candombé, Argentine milonga and tango, and more Trinidadian and Jamaican traditions.
Once you learn about it, you start seeing the Bantu influence throughout the Latin world.
Summaries
DanceAfrica 2026 Tribute to the Ancestors 🇺🇸 🇺🇬
Abdel R. Salaam & DanceAfrica Council of Elders
Drumming, dancing, and toast to the Ancestors
Weeksville Heritage Center, Crown Heights, Brooklyn
Sat, May 16, 10am
Free with rsvp
Weeksville, Brooklyn became one of the first free Black communities in the United States in the 1830s. Today it is the home of the largest concentration of West Indian and Caribbean immigrants in the USA.
DanceAfrica 2026 Community Day 🇺🇸 🇺🇬
Guest and youth artists from Billy Holiday Theatre Arts Academy
Restoration Plaza, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn
Sat, May 16, 1pm
DanceAfrica Community Dance Class 🇺🇸 🇺🇬
BAM teaching artist Kimani Fowlin
Fort Greene Park (Myrtle Ave & St. Edwards St)
Sun, May 17, 12pm
Free with registration
DanceAfrica 2026 Main Stage Performances 🇺🇸 🇺🇬
African and Diasporic dance festival featuring Uganda
Ndere Troupe, Asase Yaa African American Dance Theater, DanceAfrica Spirit Walkers, The Billie’s Youth Arts Academy Ensemble
BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music), Fort Greene
Memorial Day Weekend, Fri-Mon, May 22-25
$35+
DanceAfrica 2026 Bazaar 🇺🇸 🇺🇬
African, Afro, and Caribbean food, crafts, and fashion
Streets around BAM, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
Memorial Day Weekend, May 23-25, Sat-Mon, 12-8pm (10pm Sat)
Free to attend
DanceAfrica 2026 Late Night Dance Party 🇺🇸 🇺🇬
DJ YB: afrobeats, funk, soul, jazz, and hip hop
BAMcafé dance floor
Memorial Day Weekend, Sat, May 23, 10pm-2am
Free
DJ YB is an international Afrobeats DJ who moves the dance floor in Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, London, Paris, and NYC!
DanceAfrica 2026 Dance Classes 🇺🇸 🇺🇬
Mark Morris Dance Center, Fort Greene
Memorial Day, Mon, May 25
– Family Class by Ndere Troupe, 10am, $12+
– Inclusive Movement Class (disabilities) by Pat Hall, 11am, $12
– Master Class (intermediate/advanced) by Ndere Troupe, 12pm, $12
FilmAfrica 2026 🇺🇸 🇺🇬
Pan-African cinema focused on Uganda
Curated by the African Film Festival
BAM, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
May 22-28
Sanaa Gateja’s “Voices of Peace” tapestry 🇺🇬
Major artist who represented Uganda at the 2024 Venice Biennale
BAM lobby, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
May 5 – June 30, 2026
Free
Gateja (1950, Uganda) is known as “The Bead King.” The tapestry of figures surrounding a forest on fire was made on bark cloth from beads hand rolled by his community from post-consumer paper. The work shows the complexity and interrelatedness of every living thing, and Mother Earth herself.
The art is produced by DanceAfrica and MoCADA which has really grown as an institution. Check them out.
¡Aché!