Biennale Internationale Danse & Arts Libreville

The festival

For ten years, Libreville watched the Festival Plateau Jeune Création grow: ten editions, from 2012 to 2023, devoted to spotting, training and launching young Gabonese creators. In November 2026, the platform changes scale and name: it becomes the Biennale Internationale Danse & Arts Libreville — BIDAL — opening up to all the live arts and to all of Central Africa.

Behind the metamorphosis, the same company — CAE Culture Prod, “Créativité Africaine pour l'Excellence” — and the same man: Ogoula Latif Jean Remy, its artistic director, who has championed Gabonese creation for twenty years, from volunteering at the Festival Gabao to stages around the world.

The 11th edition — November 25-28, 2026

From Wednesday, November 25 to Saturday, November 28, 2026, Le Grand Libreville welcomes storytellers, choirs, dancers, musicians, actors and slammers from ten countries: Angola, Cameroon, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, the Central African Republic, DR Congo, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe and Chad join Gabon, with France as guest of honour.

The theme states the ambition: “Dialogue of Cultural Spaces and Dissemination in Central Africa.” Ten to fifteen directors of cultural venues from across the sub-region will be in Libreville to work on artists' ability to tour — the question that decides whether creations live on. Also on the programme: training workshops, a scientific conference, poetic consultations, exhibitions and visual arts, and a strand for universities and grandes écoles on the opportunities of digital technology in the cultural and creative industries.

A platform born in the field

The Biennale does not start from zero: it inherits the record of Plateau Jeune Création — 250 young artists trained in five years, 32 productions staged, alumni who left for companies in the Netherlands, France, Germany, the United States and Asia. It is that school of the field, now scaled up for a whole region. Our story: “Libreville, Capital of the Arts”.

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Around the festival

Pointe-Denis — a boat ride from Libreville's harbour, the peninsula of sand and lagoons facing the capital, between ocean and forest. The National Museum of Arts, Rites and Traditions of Gabon — masks, reliquaries and the arts of Gabon's peoples, in the heart of the city. The Sibang Arboretum — equatorial forest in the middle of the capital: rare species and shaded paths. The Baie des Rois — Libreville's new waterfront, its promenades and sunsets over the estuary. Sainte-Marie Cathedral — the emblematic downtown church, built of ironwood.