This article interferes with the problems posed by contemporary dance paradigms rooted in dominant Western epistemologies as illustrative of a persistent ethnocentric and narrow discourse that portrays imperialist ambitions and related exclusionary practice, which triggers skepticism amongst Africans. Alternatively, it suggests that contemporary dance be conceptualized as a cosmopolitan dance form influenced by a variety of geocultural dance styles, amongst which African traditional dances, as a perspective for circumventing and decentering this domination. Grounded in qualitative research supported by Fanon’s postcolonial cosmopolitanism, the paper models what colonial contradiction reading might offer, showing how once trash and outlawed African traditional dance principles were transposed into contemporary dance. Results show the destabilization of Africans to connect with contemporary dance is rooted in Western hegemony that disempowered African traditional dances during colonization. However, the integration of these traditional dance principles confirms African presence in contemporary dance and more importantly challenges the dominant Western epistemology. As such, from colonialism to cosmopolitanism, both African and Western cultures are interconnected in the fashioning of contemporary dance. The presence of heterogeneous dance aesthetics in contemporary dance establishes a flexible counter-discourse of this practice which owes its legacy to the global human community with which it shares a history entrenched in cosmopolitanism. Thus, a sense of belonging is important to engage Africans in the canon, and the fact that the characteristics of contemporary dance are also embedded in African traditional dances could strengthen communities, distance Africans from the many quarrels linked to this denomination, and push them to dig more into the richness of African dances to question the new Africa and join the new cosmopolitan project of cultural globalization.