The 400-strong crowd, perched on plastic chairs and wooden benches in Abidjan’s Yopougon-Selmer neighbourhood, roared with approval as Sauce Graine twisted and turned on the spot with breathtaking speed and dexterity.
The dancer, named after the Ivorian palm nut delicacy, was competing in a series of street dance battles set to biama, a frenetic offshoot of coupé-décalé, a type of percussive dance music popular across west Africa that originated in Côte d’Ivoire around the turn of the century.
