Addressing the very young, from the age of one, without sacrificing anything in terms of aesthetic singularity: this has been the challenge given to choreographers since 2022 by Le Gymnase CDCN and the professional dance and youth network LOOP, as part of the “les mouvements minuscules” program. Amala Dianor brilliantly rises to the challenge with a duet featuring a performer with a contemporary background and another trained in hip-hop culture, set to music in which the songs of Senegalese griots converse with the violins of a 19th-century waltz. For his first creation for young audiences, the man who has been mixing styles and forms with virtuosity for twenty years chose to “disturb contrasts”. Confronted with each other, in their differences as in their shared sensibility, the bodies gradually free  themselves from their automatisms and models. As gestures are freed, the singularities of each add up to an original duo that draws its own  rhythm from within, in communion with its audience.

Source: programme of the CND

After  starting out as a hip hop dancer, Amala Dianor entered the prestigious  CNDC school in Angers (in the class of 2002). From 2002 and for 10  years, he performed as a dancer with a number of choreographers in very  different worlds, including hip hop, neo-classical, contemporary and  afro contemporary (as Emanuel Gat, Hafiz Dhaou et Aicha M’Barek, Régis  Obadia, Farid Berki, Abou Lagraa, Georges Momboye, Françoise et  Dominique Dupuy…). In 2011, he won two prizes at the Reconnaissance  award for his first choreography, named Crossroad and founded his own company, in 2012.

His dance style and vocabulary were immediately identifiable: sliding  from one technique to another with ease and virtuosity, he strips away  the showy, spectacular stuff from his choreographic techniques, keeping  instead only the raw, essential movement. With this deconstructive  process he allows his dancers to experiment with new approaches and  ideas. Drawn to dialogue and the meeting of minds and bodies, he creates  a dance fusion, a hybrid of shapes, a poetics of otherness. Since 2014,  he has worked in close collaboration with the electro-soul composer  Awir Léon, who has written the original music for his pieces. He  occasionally works with other choreographers (among them, Mickael Le  Mer, Pierre Bolo, Annabelle Loiseau, Johanna Faye, BBoy Junior or  Mathias Rassin), musicians (Awir Léon, Koki Nakano, Héloïse Gaillard,  Steve Eton, Eric Aldéa, Yvan Chiossone), a writer (Denis Lachaud), a  calligrapher (Julien Breton), plasticians (Grégoire Korganow, Olivier  Gilquin, Constance Joliff, Clément Débras).

Amala Dianor’s works were – and still are - invited at National  Center for Dance, Pantin and at Festival Suresnes Cités Danse before he  became associated artist to Théâtre Louis Aragon à Tremblay-en-France  (2014-2016), to CDCN Pôle-Sud in Strasbourg (2016-2019) and then to  Centquatre à Paris (2016-2018) and la Maison de la Danse de Lyon  (2019-2021). Since 2018, his works have also been commissioned by  Théâtre de la Ville, Paris. Today, he is associated with Touka Danses, a  CDCN in Guyana (2021-2024), with the Théâtre de Macon, scène nationale  (2022-2024) and les Quinconces-l’Espal, scène nationale le Mans (2021  2024). Since 2020, Kaplan I Cie Amala Dinaor is sustained by Fondation  BNP Paribas and has 18 creations in his repertory, ranging from large  form works to solos, and has performed more than 80 times a year in  France and abroad. Its touring is supported by the French Institute and  ONDA.

Among his repertory, Amala Dianor performs the solo Man Rec (‘Me only’ in wolof), the duet Extension with the Break dance star BBoy Junior or the trio Quelque-part au milieu de l’infini(‘Somewhere  in the middle of the infinite’). ). In 2019, he created his first major  work for nine dancers to whom he taught his special blend of styles and  techniques; the work was called The Falling Stardust and is currently touring. In 2021, he creates the trio Point Zéro,  which he performs with his friends Johanna Faye (co-director of  F.A.I.R.E, CCNR), et Mathias Rassin (multiple top rock world champion)  and a solo Wo-Man for a dancer with whom he rewrites a feminine version of his solo Man Rec.  In 2021, intending to expand his audiences in new directions, he began  working with the plastician Grégoire Korganow; they created a series of  short films called CinéDanse, its first episode, Nioun Rec,  in collaboration with FranceTV, was selected as one of the dance films  in the catalogue of the prestigious Villa Albertine in the USA. In 2021,  Amala Dianor is one of the four European choreographers to be selected  and supported by the program Big Pulse Dance Network (Creative Europe). In 2022, Amala Dianor was commissioned to create a work for eight South African dancers by Via Katlehong,

which will premiere at the 2022 Avignon Festival. He has also  committed to training pre-professional dancers in France - as he did for  instance in 2020 with the dance/theater collaboration entitled Urgence which was created at Biennale de la danse de Lyon 2021 - and then in Western Africa with his project Siguifin  (‘magical monster’ in bambara), a collective creation with the  choreographers Ladji Koné, Alioune Diagne and Naomi Fall, for nine  dancers from Burkina Faso, Mali and Senegal, and the work Premiered in  2022 at Suresnes Cités Danse.

Amala Dianor has received the Médaille de Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2019.

Source : The Amala Dianor Company 's website

More information : amaladianor.com

Since 2001, the National Center for Dance (CND) has been making recordings of its shows and educational programming and has created resources from these filmed performances (interviews, danced conferences, meetings with artists, demonstrations, major lessons, symposia specialized, thematic arrangements, etc.).