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Burkina Faso is renowned within international dance circles for its vibrant dance scene. It is the origin of several accomplished and widely touring performing artists as well as a growing number of upcoming dancer-choreographers who want to engage in a professional artistic career. Yet, the existence of the profession of an artist, let alone of a professional choreographer, is not a commonly recognized social fact in this country. Against this background we trace the historical evolution of the dancing profession in Burkina Faso. Focusing on Ouagadougou, we analyse how the contemporary dance field has developed in this specific location as a transnationally connected social space that forms part of a global art world. We analyse its multiple institutional linkages with other spaces highlighting the concrete actors who have contributed to the establishment of dance 'as an art and a profession' (Sanou 2008, Afrique Danse Contemporaine. Pantin: Centre National de la Danse, 43) in this country. Thereby we underline the ambivalent role of the state, which remains an indispensable interlocutor not only in the process of recognizing artists' official status and providing access to public infrastructure but also in establishing schools, which have become important institutions mediating the relations of the art world of contemporary choreography with its social environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural geography finds itself in a very different place from when Peter Jackson’sMaps of Meaningfirst appeared in 1989. Provocations for culturally attuned spatial thinking made at that time have either altered or at least been significantly reframed when issues of wider public engagement, collaborative arts practice and new ICT-based social and creative media are changing the terrain on which cultural geography is made and practiced. We introduce a collection of 11 short essays that set to provoke questions relating to cultural geography today. The essays stem from the Doreen Massey Annual Event ‘Provocations of the Present: What Culture for What Geography?’ that took place at the Open University in Milton Keynes, UK, in June 2014. We are not suggesting that there is a ‘malaise’ requiring revitalization, neither are we proposing a single best way forwards. Rather we suggest that a collective focus on how cultural geography can remain a lively place from which to engage with might provide a moment in which the diversity of cultural geography would be profitably mobilized for the future. In this introduction, we encourage geographers to think about where cultural geography is and where it is headed by considering three areas of interest: dis/locating provocations; re/defining culture; and changing geographies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]