Artistic Direction

Biography James Carlès

Dancer, Choreographer, researcher and lecturer

James Carlès Nganou is a choreographer, researcher and lecturer. He trained for a number of years by the most well-known names in international modern dance in New York and London specifically at : Alvin Ailey DC (Modern dance), Dance Space NY (Simonson jazz), Limon Institute as well as The London Contemporary Dance Centre (Modern and Contemporary dance).  As a result of his initial training in African dances, James Carlès benefits from diverse influences that have allowed him to put into place a specific considerations and singular gestural work, born out of a confrontation of vast dance techniques and western and African ways of thinking. 

In 1998, he inaugurated in Toulouse the international dance centre which bears his name, and founded the James Carlès Company. Artistic and technical challenges, significant and decisive meetings with players of the « culture noire », James Carlès develops a unique choreographic approach based on a new conception of time and space with material originating from the vast territory of the “black dances”.

Thus far, the repertoire of the James Carlès Company enriched with more than 50 plays of his own creation and with authors such as Katherine Dunham, Pearl Primus, Talley Beatty, Asada Dafora, Rick Odums, Wayne Barbaste, Geraldine Armstrong, Vandetta Mathea, Walter Nicks… 

He is also creator and artistic director of the « Danses et Continents Noirs Festival » and is one of the co-creators of the international network of the African Diaspora Performance Consortium. 

With his extensive research project-reconstruction, conservation and restitution of the heritage of choreographic expression consecrated to the African Diaspora, James Carlès knew how to knit together on a national as well as international level, solid partnerships with cultural, educational, research, university network structures as well as, cultural mediation structures and institutions such as the Centre National de la Dance and the trustees. Detailed CV available here >> 

http://compagniejamescarles.com/en/jamesc/cv

WORKS, CREATIONS

The creations and choreographic studies of James Carlès are available here  http://compagniejamescarles.com/en/jamesc/sonoeuvre