New Baltic Dance '27: Amala Dianor (France) – DUB

“DUB” should not be understood literally as choreography created for music of this genre. Rather, the title points to the principle of appropriation and reworking, characteristic of dub music, urban dance and my own work. A quoted movement becomes a point of departure, but something else is presented alongside it—something that appropriates, extends, distorts or breaks it. Dub music takes fragments of acoustic reggae and deforms them, bringing drums and bass to the fore, weaving them together with electronic sounds to create distant acoustic spaces and new atmospheric shades of electronic music. Applying the same logic to movement, I constantly experiment with it and develop it in my performances.” — Amala Dianor

“DUB” is an affirmation of a clear contemporary form, joyful and collective, within the ephemerality of the stage. In this work, the dancers will be invited to move, adapt and change their habits. In the choreographer’s creative process, the studio becomes a kind of utopia—a place of respite, where differences lead to abundance and people seek ways to share, explore and be free. In this performance, he will examine his own creative process while working with very young Generation Z performers. The project’s creative collaborators will explore what happens to dancers—whose work is most often seen solo and perhaps in party settings—when they meet in a long-form work performed in a shared physical space. The performance will, of course, raise many important questions. What are we prepared to give up in order to exist as a group? What happens when we try to move together while remaining true to our individuality? How does a physical encounter with an experienced or novice audience affect the dancers’ creative practice? How does the performance connect reality and representation? By transferring reality into digital and stage spaces, Amala Dianor seeks to explore the place these practices occupy in the history of contemporary dance. He aims to distil the essence of a new vision of the world and create an embodied visual utopia, free of artificiality, founded on these young, talented dancers.

A self-taught hip-hop dancer, Amala Dianor graduated from the National Centre for Contemporary Dance in Angers in 2002. He worked as a dancer for ten years, drawing inspiration from a wide range of dance techniques. In 2012, he founded his company, after his first choreography, “Crossroad,” won two awards at the 2011 “Reconnaissance” competition. The choreographer quickly stood out for his distinctive, elegant and organic style, based on formal explorations of movement at the intersection of different styles. Virtuously moving from one movement grammar to another, he rejects the spectacular aspects of choreographic techniques, retaining only pure movement. Drawn to encounters and dialogue between people, he creates dance that brings together and hybridises different forms, opening up a poetics of otherness. Since 2014, he has collaborated with electro-soul composer Awir Leon, who creates music for his performances, and has also worked regularly with musicians, visual artists and actors,