Mani Was a performer...

Coming from Kenya, Mani A. Mungai discovered contemporary dance thanks to compagny Gaara Projects of Opiyo Okach.

During his formation in 2001 at the Ecole des Sables de Germaine Acogny in Senegal, he meets Bernardo Montet and joins his company in 2002. He becomes a permanent dancer of the National Choreographic Center in Tours until 2005. He dances in O.MORE, Parcours 2C (Vobiscum) by Bernardo Montet.

From this time, he is as well a dancer and a choreographer. He dances for the choreographer Opiyo Okach (Shift... Centre, 2005), Raphaëlle Delaunay (L'échappée Couly,
2006 - Bitter Sugar, 2009 - he also assists this same choreographer in Bitter Sugar – and dancer in Eikon, (2011), Farid Berki (Exodust, 2006), Emmanuel Grivet (Voici, 2007 - Nourrish, 2008), Rachid Ouramdane (Polices !, 2014), Boris Charmatz (Levée des conflits, 2010 - Enfant, 2011 - Flip Book, 2012 – Manger, 2014 and 20 Dancers for the XXth century – Les Champs Libre in Rennes, MOMA in nov. 2013 and Trep Tower in Berlin in 2014 ).

He creates his first piece in 2006 titled Chronological Pt. 1.
In 2009 he did a cameraman and video editing course at Gobelin École de l'image and worked as a cameraman ever since. His works include "Un étranger dans un étrange pays (2009), "video scenography in Babel Blabla (2010)", in 2013 - "Exposition GRAV 1968 - une commande du Musée des Beaux-arts de Rennes. His company Cie.Wayo was based in Normandy from 2009 to 2014 and in Quimper in Brittany ever since. He created two solos Babel Bled
and Babel Blabla in 2010, in January 2013 a trio titled I like-me (m’aime pas mal) with an english dancer and a Kenyan “with different abilities” dancer. Collaborated with the poet Isabelle Garron : their one year dialogue ends up in a performance titled Le Pas contemporain presented at La Maison de la poésie in Paris in November 2013.

After several experiences of performing one of his solo titled Naked invited by Boris Charmatz in the frame of ‘20 dancers for the XXe century’, Mani A. Mungai performed this powerful solo of 7 min. inspired by a text of the Jamaican poet Benjamin Zephaniah, in the streets of Avignon during the festival in july 2014, which is the last part of Babel Bled From 2014 till 2018 he performed in Boris Chamatrz’s pieces like « Levée des conflits », « FLIP BOOK », « Manger»,
« Danse de nuit », and most recently « 10,000 gestures ». He has performed also in Rachid Ouramedane’s piece «POLICE », but has continued to create his own work as a choreographer notably « The Letter - 2016 » & « To be or not to be - 2018 », which are still on tour.

He continues to perform « Babel Bled », the piece he will present in the solo forest, lately, in the frame of the exhibit at Jeu de Paume by Georges Didi-Huberman called « Soulevement »