Niger
17m
Aug 24, 2026
The Men Who Dance to Be Chosen: Inside Niger's Gerewol Festival
In the Sahel, where survival has always been the primary occupation, the Wodaabe people of Niger hold a festival in which men spend hours applying elaborate makeup, rehearse their smiles in pocket mirrors, and compete to be selected as the most beautiful by women who hold all the choosing power. Gerewol inverts almost every assumption the outside world carries about gender, beauty, and the nomadic life.