With nearly three decades of experience teaching Ethiopian cultural dance to young people, Lij Temesgen Melese has taken a distinctly local tradition onto the global stage. His latest endeavor, Ethiopian Traditional Dance Music, or ETDM, seeks to preserve the integrity of Ethiopia’s cultural forms while adapting them for contemporary audiences.
Anchored by the motto “Back to My Roots,” the project emphasizes identity, self-reliance and cultural continuity. Temesgen’s approach blends traditional rhythms and choreography with elements of electronic dance music, producing a hybrid form that speaks to both domestic and international listeners without severing its origins.
For Temesgen, the aim is not simply aesthetic innovation. His compositions foreground movement as a cultural language, translating the meaning embedded in traditional dance into a format accessible beyond Ethiopia’s borders.
He is also the author of “Nihine,” derived from a Geʽez word meaning “We,” a title that reflects his emphasis on collective identity. His work has drawn recognition abroad, including participation honors from the Southern Ethiopian Musicians Association at the Africa International Music Festival.
Over the years, Temesgen has performed as a cultural representative in countries including Algeria, Nigeria and the United States, presenting a range of Ethiopian dance traditions. He holds a master’s degree from Howard University in Washington, D.C., and has contributed to projects such as the dance film festival “Mek’rez” and the “Temu Mirt” dance reality program on DStv.
His trajectory into the arts was far from assured. Raised in Addis Ababa, he spent part of his youth supporting his family as a shoe shiner. Today, with more than two decades of stage experience, his contributions to cultural education have been incorporated into a Grade 2 national textbook.
Temesgen’s early life unfolded in the busy Shiro Meda area, where he was born and raised. By the age of 12, he had begun to pursue dance more seriously, drawing inspiration from his immediate surroundings.
His father, a shemane, or traditional weaver, worked long hours producing shema — the fabric used in Habesha clothing — while his brother practiced painting. The rhythms of the loom and the discipline of visual art formed an environment that quietly shaped his sensibility for movement and expression.
In 1998, Temesgen joined the Children and Youth Theatre Club, marking his entry into formal artistic training. Five years later, he advanced to the Hager Fikir Theatre, one of the country’s most prominent cultural institutions, where he worked alongside established figures including Tesfu Birhane, Aster Bedane and Sinafikish Tesfaye.
The experience proved formative.
At one point, he performed on the stages of both the Children and Youth Theatre and Hager Fikir Theatre in a single day — a moment he regards as a turning point in his career. Building on that momentum, he went on to establish the Ye-Temesgen Lijoch Ethiopian Cultural Dance Group.
The group quickly gained attention, attracting a growing number of students and audiences. Under his direction, enrollment expanded significantly, with nearly 40 young dancers training in traditional forms — a sign, Temesgen said, of sustained interest among a new generation in Ethiopia’s cultural heritage.
Over time, Ye-Temesgen Lijoch (YTL) has developed into a prolific performance ensemble, with appearances on more than 500 stages and in four stadiums. Its productions have included large-scale musical theater works featuring choreographies involving as many as 1,500 performers.
Temesgen attributes part of the group’s growth to an unconventional training method. Dancers rehearse to DJ-driven beats and perform based on real-time cues — an approach he said has broadened both discipline and adaptability. A televised version of the format ran for six consecutive months, drawing a sustained audience.
His own artistic output has also expanded. In addition to writing and performing two original singles, Temesgen has contributed vocals to projects by other Ethiopian artists. His latest undertaking, “ETDM Beats,” is a 13-track album that blends traditional Ethiopian forms with contemporary production, incorporating elements drawn from 17 cultural traditions.
The album, arranged by the krar player Fasika Hailu, brings together a range of collaborators, including instrumentalists and vocalists such as Gizachew Teshome and Tesfaye Taye. Among its tracks are “Dorze Dance,” which combines Dorze and Minjar influences, and “Erase Enesalehu,” a piece that merges reggae with stylistic elements from the Raya tradition.
Through ETDM Beats and related initiatives, Temesgen has sought to position traditional dance and music within a broader global framework, while also creating opportunities for young performers.
He described ETDM as a practical response to the challenge of representing Ethiopia’s wide array of dance traditions — more than 80, by his estimate — under a single, recognizable platform. “It becomes difficult to market each individually on the global stage,” he said, adding that a unified format could help younger artists engage across cultures.
At the same time, Temesgen expressed concern about structural constraints facing the creative sector. He said limited institutional support and the absence of a comprehensive cultural policy continue to restrict growth.
“There is no clear framework governing the arts, despite the sector’s economic potential,” he said, calling for policy reforms that would better support artists and cultural entrepreneurs.
He also pointed to challenges in advancing larger initiatives. A proposal he developed to establish an arts university was not approved, he said, citing regulatory and land-access barriers. “We need a system that allows artists to pursue projects at scale,” he said.
Despite those obstacles, Temesgen said his long-term goal remains to establish a cultural center that can present Ethiopian artistic traditions at an international standard while serving as a platform for future generations.
Temesgen also places part of the responsibility for the sector’s stagnation on the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture, which he said has yet to give sustained attention to the arts. At the same time, he pointed to the government’s Corridor Project — which has reshaped parts of Addis Ababa’s urban landscape — as an example of how targeted reform and investment could produce what he described as “radical change” in the cultural sphere.
To Meweded Kibru, an artist and choreographic director who has worked closely with him, Temesgen’s practice defies narrow definition. He described it as “multi-dimensional,” arguing that Temesgen operates not only as a choreographer or trainer, but as a thinker capable of interpreting artistic expression from multiple vantage points.
Meweded said Temesgen’s work extends beyond performance into mentorship and cultural preservation. By training more than a hundred students — often taking into account their personal circumstances, education and family background — he uses dance as a tool for discipline and development. In that role, Meweded said, Temesgen functions as both instructor and guardian figure.
He pointed to the recent ETDM album as evidence of Temesgen’s broader artistic reach, describing it as an attempt to position Ethiopian music within an international framework.
During collaborative sessions, Meweded observed a process that went beyond choreography in the conventional sense. Temesgen, he said, constructs what he described as a “pattern of movement,” aligning physical expression closely with musical arrangement.
Meweded ultimately framed Temesgen’s contribution in terms of direction rather than performance alone, likening his role to that of a film director shaping a narrative through the body.
For younger artists, Meweded argued, Temesgen represents a model of disciplined engagement with culture. His influence, he said, lies not only in performance but in shaping a generation of practitioners capable of sustaining and evolving Ethiopia’s artistic traditions.
That vision extends into Temesgen’s long-term ambitions. He has proposed establishing an international arts university with multiple departments, including film and arts journalism, designed to anchor creative training within Ethiopian cultural frameworks. The project, however, has yet to move forward.
In the meantime, Temesgen is seeking to build momentum through the international exposure of ETDM, with the aim of attracting institutional backing. His objective, he said, is to create a platform where Ethiopian artistic forms can be studied, developed and presented at a global standard.
“My ultimate goal is to build an international art university,” he said, “one that prepares future generations to contribute to the global cultural landscape through work that is both innovative and rooted in identity.”
