It is sometimes difficult to know where we are going, but we do know  where we come from. Dance, street dance, hip hop and contemporary dance  are our DNA. We have fully experienced these differing vocabularies  which have redefined us as artists, each and every time.

Point Zéro is above all, an invitation to  dance — with two of my friends, both well-known dancers. It is about  experiencing together the journey each of us have taken, through the  various aesthetics which are the landmarks of that journey. Johanna,  Mathias and I all began doing street dance, then each of us chose our  own paths, as it were, filled with personal encounters, sharing, a  hybridization of ideas. Point Zero is literally the central, chosen  place from which all distances are calculated. What is the road we have  traveled on during all these years of research? In France our point zero  is the plaza in front of the great Cathedral, Notre Dame de Paris, in a  city which is also one of the centers of hip hop culture.  Coincidentally, there was a terrible fire at Notre Dame this year,  creating a wave of emotion and sadness.

What remains of our cathedral of urban dancers, of our original  chapels? Are they still intact after so many years? Are we still able to  go back there, to draw from this place to create, transmit, move  together? For Mathias the answer is a firm ‘yes’ – he never gave up his  signature dance, a fusion of street dance and hip hop. There is however  the question of the aging of the body, which affects somewhat the  physical intensity of his dance vocabulary. With Johanna, I am  interested in exploring not only finding a balance between the multiple  techniques which coalesce in her dancing, but also the space where the  brute tonicity of Mathias meets the fluidity and flow which I have  worked with for so many years.

Point Zéro is also an opportunity to begin  addressing the power relationship I intend to explore in my next group  work, planned for 2022. For many years I have looked to prioritize a  relationship of caring, based on personal encounter and experiencing  things together. An honorable choice but an idea which runs contrary to  the reality of current reltationships. Is otherness also a subtle game  of power? How can we remain authentic? What am I willing to give up?  What relationship can be built if we are trying to create it together  while remaining faithful to our individualism?

Source: Amala Dianor

More information: amaladianor.com

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.).