Black Sacred Arts Conference: Religions at the Crossroads: Africa’s Creative and Spiritual Heritage

From July 22-24, 2026, the Yale Institute of Sacred Music will hold the fifth annual Black Sacred Arts Conference in Ghana in collaboration with the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, Legon, Accra. 
 
This conference brings together scholars, practitioners, performers, and community-based religious leaders to explore the Black sacred arts and related spiritual expressivities through a critical reappraisal of Africa’s “triple” religious heritage. It examines indigenous practices across Africa alongside religious and spiritual movements such as Christianity and Islam, whose histories and legacies are both rooted in and extend beyond the continent. By investigating the links between these religious streams and expressive culture—including music, visual arts, ritual, and other modes of expression—the conference interrogates and updates current research perspectives.

Particular attention is given to the complex interactions among these traditions across religious and geographic boundaries, and to the liminal space where sacred and secular life intersect. Participants will consider how these streams converge and diverge into new expressive forms and practices, the epistemologies and ontologies—written, spoken, sung, danced, drummed, painted, carved, and woven—that shape lived religious experience, and the ongoing legacy of this “triple heritage” in diasporic forms of the Black sacred arts.

Keynote speaker: Torgbui Gideon F. Alorwoyie, professor of percussion and the principal dancer/choreographer and director of the African Percussion Ensemble at the University of North Texas.

View conference website for details, full schedule and speaker list.

Contact: Katya Vetrov

Artwork: Victor Ehikhamenor, Umogun 1, 2024