I already wrote blog post about Cure Salée celebration, which is one of the most fascinating festivals at West Africa. I really like this event and it is one the most exciting moments from my West Africa travels.
I’ve search my archive and made short video which shows atmosphere at Cure Salée. Today, the festival at In-Gall (Ingal at some maps) village is mostly organized by local government and there is more and more Tuareg influence. So you can see Tuareg dances and traditions mixed with traditions of nomad people from Wodaabé (Bororo) tribe. Traditions of Tuareg and Wodaabé are quite different.
That’s why Wodaabé people organize their own festival (gathering) now. They called it Gerewol according to the name of one of their dance. Their festival is around the same time like official Cure Salée, but place is changing every year. It’s almost always somewhere at desert close to some small village. Atmosphere is exciting here. Wodaabé build their camp here at desert – there is a lot of people, tents, and camels. Place is really vibrating all day and all night. Wodaabé people have four the most important dances with the most famous Yaake and Gerewol. Before festival one of the dances is chosen as the official dance of this year and all men perform this dance only. It’s difficult to recognize differences between dances it’s mostly by type of closing and make-up and not by the dance itself. Men are dancing in the morning and then continue to dance afternoon. During the day it’s too hot and everybody is relaxing. Of course afternoon dances continue after dusk and most of the days men are dancing all night. It’s their most important event of the whole year – they try to impress young women to get wife.
