Performance Level Up (Excerpt from DUB) by Amala Dianor

For her new production, Amala Dianor draws inspiration from the constant reinvention of urban dance, featuring 11 young dancers and a live musician. An ode to the energy of the streets! Accompanied by musician and composer Awir Leon, performing live on stage, the choreographer brings together young virtuosos of new urban dance styles that are emerging in underground venues everywhere and spreading instantly around the world via social media. Observing how the younger generation draws on references from his own generation to create a new language of movement, Amala Dianor—himself a prolific dancer with a background in hip-hop—in turn appropriates these practices to forge a new community through a shared and immersive creative process. One of the key aspects of the project is the artistic collaboration between dancers—discovered in the U.S., South Africa, India, and France—who are all masters of styles such as waacking, dancehall, electro, pantsula, new style, and krump... Amala Dianor envisions Level Up (an excerpt from DUB) as an open, joyful, and utopian space for exploration, where difference is a source of richness and people are individuals seeking to share.

Amala Dianor

A self-taught hip-hop dancer with a brilliant career, Amala Dianor enrolled in the advanced program at the National Center for Contemporary Dance in Angers, from which he graduated in 2002. For ten years, he performed as a dancer, drawing inspiration from a wide range of techniques. In 2012, he founded his own company after winning two “ Award ” awards at the 2011 Reconnaissance competition for his debut choreography, *Crossroad*. The choreographer quickly made a name for himself in the dance world for the uniqueness of his elegant and organic style, which is rooted in a formal exploration of movement at the intersection of various styles. Gliding with virtuosity from one movement language to another, he strips choreographic techniques of their spectacular elements, retaining only the raw movements. Drawn to the encounter and dialogue between people, he develops a fusion of dance that blends forms and opens up a poetics of otherness. Since 2014, he has collaborated with electro-soul composer Awir Leon, who creates the music for his performances. He occasionally partners with musicians, visual artists, actors, writers, and calligraphers. In 2019, he was awarded the Medal of Knight of the Arts and Letters. In 2021, together with visual artist Grégoire Korganow, he created a collection of dance films titled *CinéDanse*, which already includes six short films that have been selected for prestigious festivals. In 2022, he was among the four European choreographers selected by the Big Pulse Dance Alliance network. That same year, he presented the Siguifin collaboration project in Europe, aimed at showcasing the creativity of artists based in West Africa, and created a piece for the South African urban dance group Via Katlehong, which had its French premiere at the Avignon Festival. For 2023, the choreographer is creating a large-scale work for 11 dancers from around the world featuring live music, DUB, and a filmed dance concert titled *Love You, Drink Water*, in collaboration with composer Awir Leon and visual artist Grégoire Korganow. His company now has 21 works and 6 short films in its repertoire and performs an average of 90 shows per year in France and around the world, with the support of prestigious institutions. A prolific artist, he enjoys grounding his artistic exploration in enduring themes and sharing his work with others.

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