The competition – where dancers from three different areas in Mali are asked to perform dances from other areas or traditions – was imagined as a way to bring some unity to a country wracked by tensions among the groups. “Over six weeks, TV audiences shared the fate of eight young men and women from different regions, who shared a house Big Brother-style in Bamako, the capital. Each week they performed before an audience and the TV cameras, their numbers progressively falling as a competitor was eliminated by a vote by the public and the jury.”