Choreographer Adedayo Liadi founded the Ijodee Dance Company in 1998 as a means to meld the aesthetic values of African physical storytelling to contemporary and modern movement from the rest of the world. Ori (The Head) is a Nigerian traditional mythology which recounts the spiritual odyssey of the Ori and tells of the opposition of the physical to the cerebral.

Since 1998, Raiz di Polon has been a pioneer of dance in Cape Verde, a country where women hold a fundamental place in cultural life, maintaining the survival and continuity of vital traditions. Inspired by a text from Mário Lúcio Sousa and playing upon the relationship between the sonorities of the voice and bodily rhythms as a form of musical instrumentation, the two dancers and creators, Bety Fernandes and Rosy Timas use buckets, brooms and branches to create their own lyrical universe of longing and nostalgia amidst the struggles of daily life.