Villa Albertine

Join Villa Albertine and Atlanta Contemporary for a reception and conversation with Villa Albertine in Atlanta’s new residents: dancer and choreographer Amala Dianor, photographer and filmmaker Grégoire Korganow, and visual artist, curator and scholar Haytham Nawar.

The reception will be followed by a conversation with all three artists and a screening of Nioun Rec, a dance film created by Grégoire Korganow and Amala Dianor.

Both choreographer and performer with a sensitive body language, Amala Dianor offers a large and hybrid choreographic work where hip-hop and contemporary dance intertwine. Photographer Grégoire Korganow has completed numerous photo and film series on socially engaged themes, bodily frailty, and dance. Their residency will comprise a field research trip to inform Amala Dianor’s upcoming creation, Dub. By exploring the ballrooms and city streets of Atlanta, Chicago, and Los Angeles, the duo hopes to meet dancers who are not found in conventional cultural institutions and to explore new forms of urban dance, particularly through the music and visual art shaping these underground cultures.

Haytham Nawar is a practicing artist and designer, as well as a scholar in the fields of art and design. He has built his professional and academic career over the past two decades simultaneously fulfilling the different roles. He is Associate Professor of design and the Chair of the department of the arts at the American University in Cairo. Nawar is also the founding director of Cairotronica, Cairo International Electronic and New Media Arts Festival, Egypt. His residency in Atlanta and Houston is a research project at the intersection of digital arts and African American cultures, specifically around Afrofuturism, whose prominent themes are heavily based on the Egyptian culture. His most recent publications are Language of tomorrow: Towards a Multicultural Visual Communication System in a Post-Human Era and the coauthored book A History of Arab Graphic Design.