Jury
Young companies
This year, we will have a special jury for the Young Companies category, on Friday, April 5 at 8 p.m.
We are pleased to welcome Nawal Aït Bennala, Hervé Koubi and Tarek Aït Meddour.
Nawal Aït Benalla began classical and jazz dance at the age of 11.
At 19, began his career with the Armstrong Jazz Ballet.
A versatile artist, she will perform as much at the Theatre in Cyrano directed by Jacques Weber, as at the Opera with Yannis Kokkos at the Théâtre du Châtelet.
In 2000, she was chosen by the famous DJ Laurent Garnier for his world tour.
Passionate about transmission, she obtained her State Diploma at the CND Paris in 2005.
She joined La Baraka in 2006 as a performer and quickly became a figurehead of the company. Within La Baraka, she developed projects where art and social commitment were inextricably linked, such as the Mediterranean Cultural Bridge between France and Algeria, or Premier(s) Pas with the Edmond de Rothschild Foundations.
Since 2018, she has co-directed La Baraka, alongside Abou Lagraa, by leading the project of installing the company in La Chapelle. La Chapelle Sainte-Marie becomes a place to host creative residencies for national and international dance companies.
“DO YOU BE” (2015), her first piece, will be performed at the Maison de la Danse in Lyon, during the fortnight of gender equality.
In 2020, she continued to assert her ambition with PREMIER(S) PAS, a piece for 8 dancers, which received critical acclaim.
His latest creation “SUR TES ÉPAULES” opens the Mainz International Dance Festival on March 8, 2023, followed by the season opening of the Théâtre Silvia Monfort, Paris (October 2023).
Tarek Aït Meddour is a choreographer and performer with a career rich in multiple encounters and demanding teachings that have led him to shape a precise and mixed dance. Coming from martial arts, he trained at the École nationale des Arts de Créteil then at the Académie internationale de Danse de Paris. After starting out at the Paris Opera alongside Laurence Fanon, at the Théâtre du Châtelet with Robert Carsen, then with Kim Brandstrup at the Royal Opera in London, he joined the Centre Chorégraphique National de Nantes under the direction of Claude Brumachon and Benjamin Lamarche. He then collaborated with the companies KH with Karim Khouader, Cie Black Sheep with Johanna Faye and Saïdo Lehlouh, Cie Makiato with Tatiana Seguin, Cie Ezio Schiavulli, and discovered the work of Giuliano Peparini and Benoît Swan Pouffer. More recently, he worked on the creation of the baroque opera Alcione, with Raphaëlle Boitel, through physical theatre mixed with circus arts. He also worked under the direction of Philippe Giraudeau at the Paris Opera and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, as well as with Marie-Ève Signeyrole for an original creation for the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris - Baby Doll.
He is the founder of the Colégram company, created in 2016, which he designed both as a creative tool and as a vector for teaching and sharing his research. Nourished by academic disciplines but also by urban influences, the company develops a hybrid, emotional and committed contemporary dance. Its actions - courses, workshops, performances, conferences - reach all audiences. Since the creation of Colégram, mediation projects have been developed with EHPADs, refugee centers, penitentiaries and with people with mental and/or psychological disabilities. In addition, the company's repertoire includes Le Bal, Résister, Tawam, as well as the solo Ventisei and around fifteen creations for young ballets throughout France. Regularly invited as a competition jury, he also maintains a close link with teaching and transmission.
Choreographer of several event projects, he directed the last fashion show for Columbia.
Finally, with Cécile Combaret and Sarah Perret Vignau, he co-founded FMR, an international contemporary dance festival in Arles.
Trained at the "school of dance", notably with Rosella Hightower, Hervé Koubi began his career as a performer
in pieces by Jean-Christophe Paré and Emilio Calcagno.
Then a dancer at the National Choreographic Center of Nantes Claude Brumachon and Benjamin Lamarche then at the National Choreographic Center of Caen with Karine Saporta and in the Thor Company in Brussels with Thierry Smits it was in 2000 that he decided to develop his choreographic project.
It is first of all the Tradition, and all the oral and bodily transmission that it carries within it, which will capture his interest.
A dance that brings people together, that unites, that creates links between the balls of yesteryear, the rave parties and the
dance gatherings.
It is then notions of traces, memories, filiations which will lead him in particular to Algeria, to the
search for his roots.
This is how in 2009, the man and his artistic career were struck by urban dances even if they
were already present, like a precursor echo, from his first creations.
He considers the porosity of techniques between them as a space of experimentation which would go beyond the
frames and technical and aesthetic affiliations.
Field choreographer is also about meeting and sharing between his works, audiences and practices
that he develops numerous territorial projects which question and define the hollow boundaries of a Ballet
of the open and current 21st century.
He was decorated in July 2015 with the Order of Knight of Arts and Letters by Brigitte Lefèvre.
Diplomé du CNSM de Paris en 2006, Mathieu Geffré a forgé son identité chorégraphique au travers de sa carrière en tant que danseur interprète pour diverses compagnies européennes (Dansgroep Amsterdam, Noord Nederlandse Dans et National Dance Company Wales).
Il collabore alors avec certains des grands noms de la danse actuelle :
Itzik Galili, Angelin Preljocaj, Didy Veldman, Theo Clinkard, Alexander Ekman etc... Parallèlement à son parcours en tant qu'interprète, il développe son travail en tant que chorégraphe et enseignant.
Ses chorégraphies ont été présentées lors de nombreux événements européens et internationaux. En 2016, il remporte le Troisième Prix Chorégraphique lors du Concours International Chorégraphique de Copenhague.
Mathieu se retire de la scène en 2019 pour se concentrer sur le développement de son action créative. En plus de créer en tant que chorégraphe invité pour des compagnies telles que Nationaltheatre Mannheim, Boston Dance Theatre ou CobosMika, il établit sa compagnie Rendez-Vous dance à Newcastle.
Avec Rendez-Vous dance, Mathieu reçoit de nombreuses accolades de la presse et du public. Il reçoit notamment un OFFIE Award, ainsi que le prix meilleur chorégraphe et meilleur production de l'année 2023 pour son duo What songs may do... En 2024, son deuxième spectacle Le Monocle est nommé dans la catégorie Meilleur Spectacle de l'Année aux North East Culture Awards
Mathieu est également un professeur de renommée qui intervient régulièrement dans les
compagnies de Wayne McGregor, Biennale de Venise, Matthew Bourne et Northern School of Contemporary Dance.