Amala Dianor

Self-taught with an outstanding career in hip-hop dance, Amala Dianor joined the advanced program at the National Center for Contemporary Dance in Angers, from which he graduated in 2002. For ten years, he worked as a performer, drawing inspiration from a wide range of techniques. In 2012, he founded his own company after winning two awards at the 2011 Reconnaissance competition for his first choreography, Crossroad.

The choreographer was quickly recognized for the singularity of his elegant and organic style of writing, rooted in a formal exploration of movement at the crossroads of different styles. Moving from one vocabulary to another with virtuosity, he strips choreographic techniques of their spectacular dimensions, retaining only the raw movement. Drawn to dialogue and the meeting of minds and bodies, he creates a dance fusion, a hybrid of shapes, a poetics of otherness.

Kaplan / Cie Amala Diandor has 21 works in its repertoire and presents an average of 80 performances per year in France and around the world, with the support of prestigious institutions.

Since 2014, he has worked in close collaboration with electro-soul composer Awir Leon, who creates the music for his productions. He also collaborates occasionally with musicians, visual artists, actors, writers, and calligraphers.
In 2021, together with visual artist Grégoire Korganow, he created a collection of dance films entitled CinéDanse, which already includes six short films selected by renowned festivals. In 2022, he was one of four European choreographers selected by the Big Pulse Dance Alliance network. That same year, he presented in Europe the cooperative project Siguifin, aimed at highlighting the creativity of artists based in West Africa, and created a piece for the South African urban dance group Via Katlehong, whose French premiere was held at the Festival d'Avignon.
In 2023, the choreographer created two formats with live composer Awir Leon and visual artist Grégoire Korganow in charge of scenography: a hybrid trio combining concert, video installation, and dance piece, Love You Drink Water, and a large-scale work for 11 dancers from around the world, DUB, which became a major event in France and internationally.
In 2024, he directed a new duet for two female dancers entitled M&M, blending dancehall and contemporary dance. At the same time, he responded to a commission from the LOOP youth network with a piece entitled Coquilles, created for nursery and kindergarten audiences (ages 1–6). In 2025, he partnered with musical director Paul Agnew to create Gesualdo Passione, a piece for four dancers and six singers from Les Arts Florissants.

A prolific artist, he is committed to developing his research over the long term and to sharing his knowledge. He gladly accompanies the touring of his works by organizing outreach activities for audiences: talks, lectures, DJ sets, relaxed performances, workshops with amateur dancers, and masterclasses with professional dancers.
He also leads numerous projects with pre-professional dancers in France, most recently in 2020 for the commissioned work Urgence, a cross-disciplinary theatre-dance piece that premiered at the Biennale de la danse de Lyon in 2021. In the same spirit, since 2018 he has also undertaken a cooperative project supporting emerging artists in West Africa through the Siguifin project. This is a collective creation with choreographers Ladji Koné, Alioune Diagne, and Naomi Fall, for nine dancers from Burkina Faso, Senegal, and Mali. Its stage premiere took place at Suresnes Cités Danse in 2022.

At the same time, Amala Dianor served as an expert for the Dance Technical Committee of the Pays de la Loire Regional Council in 2021, was a member of the Dance Committee for Caisse des Dépôts in 2022 and 2023, and acted as moderator and member of the scientific committee for the symposium Concourir, organized by the Centre National de la Danse (CND) in 2023.

Amala Dianor was awarded the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2019 and the Officier des Arts et des Lettres in 2024.

Kaplan / Cie Amala Dianor is supported under agreement by the French State – DRAC Pays de la Loire and the City of Angers. The company also regularly receives support for its projects from the Institut Français and ONDA. The company has benefited from the support of the BNP Paribas Foundation since 2020.