Editing Djembe (section)

===National ballets===
[[File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F014155-06, Bonn, Afrikawoche, Nationalballett Guinea.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Dancers of Les Ballets Africains in Bonn, Germany, 1962|[[Les Ballets Africains]] in [[Bonn]], [[Germany]], 1962]]

The djembe first came to the attention of audiences outside West Africa with the efforts of [[Fodéba Keïta]], who, in 1952, founded [[Les Ballets Africains]]. The ballet toured extensively in Europe and was declared Guinea's first national ballet by Guinea's first president, [[Ahmed Sékou Touré|Sékou Touré]], after Guinea gained independence in 1958, to be followed by two more national ballets, the Ballet d'Armee in 1961 and Ballet Djoliba in 1964.<ref name="Billmeier" />

Touré's policies alienated Guinea from the West and he followed the [[Eastern Bloc]] model of using the country's culture and music for promotional means.<ref name="Meredith">{{cite book|title=The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence|last=Meredith|first=Martin|year=2006|publisher=Jonathan Ball Publishers|location=Johannesburg, South Africa|isbn=978-1-86842-251-7|title-link=The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence}}</ref> He and Fodéba Keïta, who had become a close friend of Touré, saw the ballets as a way to secularize traditional customs and rites of different ethnic groups in Guinea. The ballets combined rhythms and dances from widely different spiritual backgrounds in a single performance, which suited the aim of Touré's demystification program of "doing away with 'fetishist' ritual practices".<ref name="Flaig">{{cite thesis |first=Vera |last=Flaig |title=The Politics of Representation and Transmission in the Globalization of Guinea's Djembé |url=http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75801/1/vhflaig_1.pdf |access-date=January 15, 2012 |publisher=University of Michigan |year=2010 |degree=Ph.D. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140428014120/http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75801/1/vhflaig_1.pdf |archive-date=April 28, 2014 |url-status=live |df=mdy }}</ref><ref name="Berliner">{{cite journal|first=David|last=Berliner|title=An 'Impossible' Transmission: Youth Religious Memories in Guinea-Conakry|journal=American Ethnologist|volume=32|issue=4|pages=576–592|date=November 2005|doi=10.1525/ae.2005.32.4.576}}</ref>

Touré generously supported the ballets (to the point of building a special rehearsal and performance space in his palace for Ballet Djoliba) and, until his death in 1984, financed extensive world-wide performance tours, which brought the djembe to the attention of Western audiences.<ref name="Djembefola">{{cite video |title=Djembefola |people=Laurent Chevallier (director), Mamady Keïta (himself) |year=1991 |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0216717/ |access-date=March 23, 2013 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170211023704/http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0216717/ |archive-date=February 11, 2017 |df=mdy }}</ref><ref name="Ballet Africains">{{cite web |title=Les Ballets Africains |url=http://www.lesballetsafricains.net/ |access-date=January 15, 2012 |work=Official website sanctioned by the Department of Culture of the Republic of Guinea |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120116231709/http://www.lesballetsafricains.com/ |archive-date=January 16, 2012 |url-status=live |df=mdy }}</ref> Other countries followed Touré's example and founded national ballets in the 1960s, including Ivory Coast (Ballet Koteba), Mali ([[Les Ballets Malien]]),<ref name="theatre encyclopaedia">{{cite book|title=The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre: Africa|volume=3|publisher=Routledge|location=London|isbn=978-0-415-05931-2|date=June 24, 1997|pages=[https://archive.org/details/worldencyclopedi0002unse_j6c2/page/448 448]|last1=Diawara|first1=Gaoussou|last2=Diawara|first2=Victoria|last3=Koné|first3=Alou|editor1-last=Diakhate|editor1-first=Ousmane|editor2-last=Eyoh|editor2-first=Hansel Ndumbe|editor3-last=Rubin|editor3-first=Don|url=https://archive.org/details/worldencyclopedi0002unse_j6c2/page/448}}</ref> and Senegal (Le Ballet National du Senegal), each with its own attached political agenda.<ref name="Castaldi">{{cite book|title=Choreographies of African Identities: Negritude, Dance, and the National Ballet of Senegal|first=Francesca|last=Castaldi|year=2006|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=978-0-252-07268-0}}</ref>