Javier López Piñón

As a stage-director of opera, I got interested in theatre life in West Africa since 1999. As a retired teacher at Dutch National Opera Academy as well as the Amsterdam Academy for Theatre and Dance, I stimulate initiatives in (francophone) West Africa to offer formal training in the performing arts for aspiring professionals.

My main focus is Benin (where a BA in Theatre Arts has been established at the École Internationale de Théatre du Bénin, I have been involved from its very beginning), and Togo (where I have been appointed  from 2023 onwards at the newly established École Supérieure des Arts du Spectacle). My theatre projects also have brought me to Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Niger and more recently Senegal. My future ambition is to establish a music-theatre centre in Guinee. In 2017 I acquired my MA degree at Utrecht University with my thesis 'Borrowers and Lenders: Exploring Contemporary Intercultural Theatre in Francophone West-Africa'. In 2022 I acquired my MA degree in African Studies at Ghent University with my thesis 'Come you Spirits, Unsex me Here: Contemporary Theatre and African Ceremonies as a Playground for Alternative Masculinities'.

For detailed information: www.javierlopezpinon.com.