National Culture Week of Burkina Faso

A national gathering

The week is a state-organised festival run by the Ministry of Culture, Art and Tourism. Its organisers describe three purposes. The first is to bring the country's many ethnic groups together and to give their arts an outing. The second is to build social ties with people of other nationalities who live in Burkina Faso, by making room for them to meet. The third is to strengthen links with other African countries and with the wider world. Since 1990 the whole event has been held in Bobo-Dioulasso, the second city of Burkina Faso, after earlier editions travelled to other towns.

Origins and history

The week was set up in 1983 so that Burkina Faso would have a cultural gathering in the years between editions of FESPACO, the country's pan-African film festival. The first outing, in December 1983, was held in Ouagadougou and drew around two thousand entrants, who took part in the shows and the contests alike. A second edition followed in Gaoua in December 1984. Money troubles linked to how often the event came round led the organisers to fix it on a two-year cycle and settle it in Bobo-Dioulasso. The source counts thirteen editions by 2006, the last of them with close to fifteen hundred entrants.

How the week runs

Each edition has two halves. One is a festival open to everyone: concerts and dance on public ground, with no ticket needed, given by the musicians and performers taking part. A large trade fair runs alongside it, with stands held by local businesses that represent international firms, by artists and by traders from the country. Their goods include craftwork, cloth, decorative pieces, art objects and traditional medicines. Music, dance and sport are staged at the fair as well, which is part of what draws the crowds. There are guided excursions for visitors too.

The competitions

Two things run side by side: the festival and a contest called the National Award of Arts and Literature. Entrants compete in literature, visual arts, spectacle arts, cooking and traditional sport. Spectacle arts draw the largest field, covering choreography, traditional dance and traditional music, with prizes for the best traditional singer and the best modern singer. Performers there are expected to use traditional instruments such as the louanga, the kora and the djembe. Visual arts take in sculpture, batik and painting. Writers enter comics, novels, plays and retold folktales, and may choose their own subjects. Cooking is judged by three people on how long a dish took to make, whether the ingredients come from the country, and hygiene in the kitchen.

Sport and rewards

Wrestling and archery are the two traditional sports in the contest. Wrestlers are matched by weight, and one competitor from Nayala, Athasane Raoul Moussiane, nicknamed the Bull of Nayala, took the heaviest class five times. Archers shoot at thirty metres in the adult class and twenty metres in the young one. Rewards are mostly in cash, and the sums have grown with each edition. The top three in every field are paid, with the largest amounts going to spectacle arts and literature. Communities and the government add special prizes, which may be money or goods.

How National Culture Week of Burkina Faso is kept

The Ministry of Culture, Art and Tourism organises each edition. Entrants arrive from every region of the country, and foreign troupes and members of the Burkinabè diaspora have also appeared. The week opens with shows on public ground, which cost nothing to watch. The trade fair opens at the same time. Judging then runs through the days in each field: spectacle arts, visual arts, literature, cooking and sport. The week closes with prizes for the first three in every field.

When and where

The week is held every two years. The early editions fell in December, and later ones in March or April, with the thirteenth running from 25 March to 1 April 2006. The two-year rhythm was fixed after the 1984 edition, when the cost of holding it more often became clear.

Burkina Faso is its home, and the week has been held in Bobo-Dioulasso, the country's second city, since 1990. Earlier editions went to Ouagadougou, Gaoua, and both Koudougou and Reo. Performers come from all over the country, and guests have travelled from Senegal, Ivory Coast, Benin, Mali and France.

What National Culture Week of Burkina Faso means

The organisers set out three aims. One is to gather the country's ethnic groups in one place and show their arts. Another is to make a meeting ground for people of other nationalities who live in Burkina Faso. The third is to build cooperation with the rest of Africa and beyond. For those who take part, the week is where local music, dance and crafts are valued and passed on.

Questions people ask about National Culture Week of Burkina Faso

See also

GriotWest Africa's hereditary keepers of spoken history, praise and musicZouglouA dance-led music style from Ivory Coast, sung in street slang and local languagesChristmasA festival of Jesus's birth, kept on 25 December with gifts, lights and shared mealsHalloweenAn annual observance on 31 October marking the eve of All Saints' Day, rooted in Christian tradition and Celtic heritage

Good reading and sources

• National Culture Week of Burkina Faso on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.