This is a little nudge or pointer to what lies ahead.San rock paintings of lithe, red dancers, produced on the Southern Cape of South Africa at around the time when Jesus Christ was born, are among the earliest revelations: testimony to the existence of a tremendously sophisticated but now almost completely unknown society. The clockwise tour that begins in Egypt and winds round through Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola, the Congo, Nigeria, Cameroon and finally into Algeria and Morocco - this is both a revelation of the enormous unknown breadth of African art and a demonstration of the fact that it will no longer quite do to consign such art to the wunderkammer marked "Primitive and Tribal".The cordon sanitaire of "savagery" and "power" that has traditionally been placed round African art is constantly crossed in this show - so it makes sense to start as they have done with the art of Egypt, so formative in the development of the art of Greece and Rome. This is one of the most compelling and extraordinary exhibitions likely to be staged in our lifetimes - and far from being an event rooted in the old kinds of colonialist or modernist or other kinds of appropriationist ignorance, it is one that delights in their exposure. Ignore the fake protestations of the heartless professional controversialists who made up their minds about the show before they ever saw it. Does the man have no shame? No, he does not, but his other qualities make up for it.

Phillips has done his work with such generosity of spirit and largeness of imagination that all qualms are dispelled almost by the time you have passed through the first gallery. A "sampling" of the art of a thousand thousand different cultures, drawn from all over one of the largest land masses on the surface of the globe, with a time-span that stretches back from 20th-century South Africa (pierced wooden earplugs) all the way to ancient Egypt (an almost unbearably erotic stone statue of Nefertiti wearing a body-hugging prototype of a Fortuny outfit) - and back, still further back, into the mists of Before Present to a moment in history ("Oldowan Core") when Missing Links were still in the process of evolving into men? What neo-colonialist, neo- imperialist, neo-Victorian presumption What absurd hubris. The curators of "Africa", Tom Phillips and Norman Rosenthal, are entirely unapologetic about the necessary sketchiness of the picture this paints of an entire continent's visual culture. Phillips, who hopes to honour the Royal Academy's tradition of "enlightened foolhardiness", writes of the show in its tombstone catalogue that it is "a sampling of the art of an entire continent" - a phrase bound to raise questions and eyebrows. The art of a fair number of those civilisations has been crammed into 10 rooms at the Royal Academy. The blob of stone half-formed into an almost-something by the slightest of flakings and chippings is to be seen as a wonder: the visible embryo of all human civilisations.

What looks at first sight like nothing more than a fist-sized chunk of roughened rock is suddenly charged with huge and romantic associations. Oldowan Core, as it is described in the catalogue ("Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, circa 1.6-1.7 million years Before Present"), is said to be one of the oldest objects to show "the visible beginning of those human skills from which our artefacts and art, in Africa and throughout the world, have developed their material complexity". The lottery people have to address the issue of new British talent on the middle scale in London; otherwise I feel it might become a quasi-opera house. There must be room in the programme for smaller-scale homegrown work, for that is surely what the lottery grant is all about. People may say we should go to the South Bank, but the South Bank is an arts centre, not a theatre, and we couldn't produce our work there.This argument has been hijacked by the larger companies, but it must remain financially viable for companies such as ours to produce our work at Sadler's Wells.

We're delighted, but this money should not be allowed to turn this theatre into an elitist organisation.Harold King, artistic director of London City BalletSadler's Wells needs the funds to improve conditions in the theatre, which, as one of the oldest dance theatres in the country, has become very run down. The grant will enable local audiences to receive more value for money. Sadler's Wells provides a varied programme of not just ballet but drama, opera, contemporary dance, African and flamenco. It is of historical importance, and as such acts as a national centre for dance and is deserving of any funding to help it provide more for the community.. The first thing seen in "Africa: the Art of a Continent" is non- descript but portends much. It was make or break, really, and at last London will have a theatre to entice major international companies to Britain. Sadler's Wells has had a long tradition of producing high-quality dance, and a firm commitment to accessibility.However, while at present small companies like ours sell out at Sadler's Wells, there is the danger that once the expansion has taken place we will be replaced by more tutus and foreign work.

It looks as if all the money is going to the arts, but it isn't: it's not the arts' fault that they were better prepared to receive it than the charities.Katharine Dore, executive director of Adventures in Motion Pictures"This is the third season in three years that we have produced ourselves at the Wells, and we're delighted that it has received a lottery grant. We're dedicated to the education outreach part of it, too.Everybody is going to have more free time in the future, and if there is full employment in 10 years or so then we'll have more time to enjoy sport and the arts - this is going to happen whether we like it or not. I find it very unfair what some of the papers are saying; we desperately need a good stage in London for dance and musical theatre. It might seem elitist, but we've been trying for as long as I can remember to improve this theatre, and this is the first set of plans that will make any huge difference. We've always had music theatre and musicals here too.With all these lottery applications you have to prove you are making a concerted effort to bring in those who don't normally go to the theatre.