Aimée Wodobodé
Born in Central African Republic and raised in Paris, Aimée Wodobodé is a multifaceted international performer and artist educator. She earned a BA in Performing Arts from St. Mary’s College of California, Moraga, in 2018. She was Lecturer in West African Dance at University of California Los Angeles from 2018 to 2021 and joined the department of Dance at Long Beach, California, in 2022.
Wodobodé performed in the Broadway acclaimed musical Fela!, directed by Bill T. Jones, from 2008 to 2013. During her tenure, the show won the Fred Astaire Award for Best Female ensemble on Broadway, the Tony Award for Best Choreography (2009) and the Lucille Lortel for Best Musical. Wodobodé was featured in Dance Magazine and the New York Times for her work in Fela!, as well as her work with Forces of Nature Dance Theater, located in New York and directed by Abdel R. Salaam, from 2002 to 2008. Wodobodé’s extensive performance résumé includes the Opera de Paris Garnier, France (in Laura Scozzi’s Sol a Sol avec Poids); Suresnes Cités Danses, France (in A Chacun Son Serpent and Etant Donné La Conjoncture Actuelle); and at Brooklyn Academy of Music (with Forces of Nature), Apollo Theater (Forces of Nature Regeneration Night), Harlem Stage (Forces of Nature) and Eugene O’Neill Theatre (Fela!), all in New York; and Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London (Fela!).
Wodobodé extensively studied the traditional dances of the West African Mandé region. Her passion for the West African dance genre took her to various trips to Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Senegal. She is recently returning from a year choreographic inquiry trip in Senegal, where she developed the desire to use her dance technique, diasporic travels and life experiences in the many cultures that are Africa, Europe and the U.S., to create work that speaks about the experience of Black movement and Black culture in diverse geographic spaces. Wodobodé is grateful to the array of international mentors who have shaped her multi-genre style.