Amala Dianor has thought for a long time about how to teach/ transmit  his solo, “Man Rec,” which he created in 2014 and which has toured ever  since, including more than a hundred performances around the world in  2020. It channels all Dianor’s technical influences and techniques,  including hip hop, contemporary and African dance — and is a sort of  intimate manifesto for the choreographer. Here he lays out his hybrid,  unique movement vocabulary, deceptively simple yet complex, abstract yet  driven, energetic yet quiet.

It was his encounter with Nangaline Gomis in 2018 which inspired him  to create “Wo-Man.” She was studtying at the prestigious CNSM in Lyon,  and asked the choreographer if she could learn an excerpt of “Man Rec”  as part of her study program. They had two days in the studio together,  and she received high marks for the work on her exam – then each of them  returned to her and his artistic journey. But he could not stop  thinking about a longer period of transmission of the work, and the  memory of this extraordinary young woman, Franco-Senegalese like him –  stayed with him.

So in 2020, instead of teaching her the entire solo, Dianor decided  to create for her a prolongation of his original choreography, a  re-creation n the body of this young woman. Nangaline’s pulsating,  propulsive energy offered Dianor the opportunity to transpose his  movement into another body, reconstructing, revisiting, reinventing and  re-recording the work. This solo is a continuation, another perspective,  offering a different tonicity, vitality and the drive of a committed  young dancer. “Man” means “me” in Wolof. “Man Rec” means “only me”.  “Wo-Man” would be the feminine version of this choral “me,” filled with  diverse influences and cultures.

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

Born in 1977, Fabien Plasson is a video director specialized in the field of performing arts (dance , music, etc).

During his studies at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Lyon (joined in 1995) Fabien discovered video art. He was trained by various video artists (Joel Bartoloméo Pascal Nottoli , Eric Duyckaerts , etc).
He first experimented with the creation of installations and cinematic objects.

From 2001 to 2011, he was in charge of Ginger & Fred video Bar’s programming at La Maison de la Danse in Lyon. He discovered the choreographic field and the importance of this medium in the dissemination, mediation and pedagogical approach to dance alongside Charles Picq, who was a brilliant video director and the director of the video department at that time.

Today, Fabien Plasson is the video director at La Maison de la Danse and in charge of the video section of Numeridanse.tv, an online international  video library, and continues his creative activities, making videos of concerts, performances and also creating video sets for live performances.

Sources: Maison de la Danse ; Fabien Plasson website

More information: fabione.fr