African art inspired Picasso and other contemporary artists, and the dominant rhythms that emanate from that land infuse our music in a number of ways. Now we are just learning that Africa houses a burgeoning contemporary dance scene.

We saw a sneak peek last October when Zimbabwean dancer Nora Chipaumire offered a solo concert at the New Hazlett Theater during the August Wilson Center's "First Voice" festival.

But Chipaumire was trained in the United States. Today she is the associate director of Brooklyn-based Urban Bush Women, a collective of seven dancers founded by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar in 1984. It "seeks to bring the untold and under-told stories and histories of the disenfranchised to light through dance," not only from a woman's perspective, but as part of the African Diaspora community.

The company is reaching across the ocean to partner with Compagnie Jant-Bi, a Senegalese group of seven male dancers. This company is directed by Germaine Acogny, considered to be the mother of contemporary African dance. The company emerged from Ecole des Sables, the International Center for Traditional and Contemporary Dance, in 1998.

There they were, on opposite sides of the Atlantic, Jant-Bi exploring the Rwandan genocide with Japanese butoh choreographer Kota Yamazuki and Urban Bush Women focusing on topics like "Shelter," about homelessness, and "Hairstories," which combed through black women's hair, beauty and self-esteem.

Then Acogny and Zollar finally met at Florida State University during a conference sponsored by the Congress on Research in Dance (CORD) in 2004. Chipaumire happily found herself in the midst of other African dancers, much like her. But the pair of directors exclaimed, "Oh my god, we're sisters!"

A deep admiration was immediately apparent and collaboration became a real possibility.

Later that year, the two companies gathered at Columbia College, observing rehearsals, taking classes. "The feeling was getting deeper and deeper that this would come to pass," says Chipaumire. "And it came to be."

This was the beginning of Chipaumire's journey back to Africa as an artist, something highly unusual for a woman in her home country.

"It opened up a huge path for me," she says. "It was a powerful underscoring, what the Urban Bush Women stood for -- the diaspora and investigating the African aesthetic. This was the root of it all."

Thus began a three-year process, mostly in spurts for the dancers, including three weeks in Senegal and three weeks back at Florida State.

There weren't as many problems as one might expect, given the companies' cultural and language differences. One of the Urban Bush Women, Catherine Denecy, knew French and served as interpreter. Other women knew some pedestrian French, as the men knew some pedestrian English.

But Chipaumire felt that the dance went beyond the spoken language. "It was a movement language that we have in common," she says. "We may have different accents. And, men being men, their centers are different." Then too, Jant-Bi came from a traditional environment, while the women were trained in ballet and modern dance.

Yet they were able to find the answers. "We worked in a way that was very democratic for the dancers," Chipaumire explains. "We choreographed movement according to our body and psychology."

In other words, Acogny and Zollar encouraged the dancers to develop their own dance, so that the cast became very comfortable with it all.

"They're great directors in shaping and formal structuring," says Chipaumire.

"They used the full weight of their experience and knowledge. Actually it was very courageous for them to allow us this huge freedom -- the whole piece became meaningful."

Called "Les ecailles de la memoire" or "The scales of memory," the work had its premiere in a small Senegalese village in 2006. "We think of art as a formal concert dance," says Chipaumire. "But these ordinary people took it for what it was."

After a week to set the lights and costumes, the American premiere took place at Florida State, back where it all started. The piece focuses on love, memory and resistance.

Chipaumire, who grew up in the revolution of Zimbabwe, has a personal investment in that final section. The dancers were divided according to historical and geographic backgrounds. She was the only Zimbabwean.

Although her solo section only lasts a couple of minutes, it's still profound for her. "It allows me to address my history," she notes. "It reminds me of why I dance."

She is also surprised by how coherent the work is. "It was a momentous task. The Senegalese were unaware of American dance, and it opens up a new continent to us as well," Chipaumire says. "The possibilities are just momentous."