Momar Ndiaye joined The Ohio State University Department of Dance as an assistant professor this autumn 2020 after recently working with the department teaching classes as a lecturer and choreographing two works as a guest artist for 13 Dance Shorts last autumn 2019. As a choreographer and director, Ndiaye will ground his creative research here at Ohio State Dance, making work with students, faculty colleagues and professional collaborators. He will be teaching in many areas: movement practice, composition, repertory, improvisation and others that he will develop. We have high hopes for student exchanges and international study in Dakar, Senegal.
Ndiaye is an internationally recognized dance artist from Senegal who has taught and toured his work both in the States and abroad. He received his MFA in Dance from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he taught contemporary and traditional African dance forms from Senegal, Guinea, Mali, Congo, etc., as well as video dance documentation. Ndiaye has worked with many well-known choreographers from Africa, Europe, Asia, and America through the program Aex. Corps initiated by the Association Premier Temps in Senegal. Since 2010, Momar has danced for internationally acclaimed choreographer Andreya Ouamba in the Dakar-based company Premier Temps and was selected as a Dance Web participant at Impuls Tanz Festival in Vienna, Austria, in 2012. He has been developing work with his own company, Cadanses, since 2004 and has created and toured several staged contemporary dance works. In 2015, Ndiaye’s evening length piece Toxu was a finalist laureate in the Danse L’Afrique Danse (Africa and Caribbean in Creation) Festival in St. Louis and Senegal and was toured to Europe as part of the Belluard Festival in Switzerland. In 2016, Momar was selected to participate in two intercultural projects, Shifting Realities, supported by Tanz Haus and Hellerau in Germany, and 1space, a collaboration between KVS Brussel, Exodus in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and Alkantara Lisbon, Portugal.
“My position is partially funded by the Discovery Theme (D.T.) and the Department of Dance,” says Ndiaye. “I am joining the department as an Africanist faculty member and will be teaching dances from Africa (traditional, contemporary and experimental). I am coming to bring my modest contribution so, with my colleagues, we maintain our department high-up to the standards of excellence it is known for. I am honored to join a community of great scholars and teachers in the Global Art and Humanities Discovery Theme program and the Department of Dance at Ohio State.”
This autumn Ndyiae is teaching Contemporary Movement Practice and Traditional African Movement Practice. This spring, he will teach Contemporary Movement Practice and Improvisation.
Welcome Momar!
Performance photos by Natalie Fiol
