The French Embassy in Cairo held a ceremony on Wednesday to award Egyptian artist and choreographer Karima Mansour the French Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters.
The French Ambassador to Cairo, Marc Baretti, handed the highest medal award in France to Mansour in appreciation of her important artistic role in the contemporary Egyptian theater scene and in addition her contributions to promoting arts and literature in France.
Mansour is a dancer, choreographer and educator with both a B.A. and a Masters degree in Contemporary Dance from the London Contemporary Dance School, London, England, after having completed her B.A. in Film from the High Institute of Cinema, Academy of Arts in Cairo, Egypt.
Upon her return to Egypt, she founded her company MAAT for Contemporary Dance in 1999, the first independent dance company to be established in the country.
Since then she has created over 20 full choreographic works that continue to be performed in various international festivals, as well as various collaborations in theater and film.
MAAT has been busy throughout the years of developing dance through organized workshops taught by Mansour and invited guests from all over the world, including dance film screenings and discussions revolving around the topic of dance and choreography.
Mansour has been a teacher for the Cairo Opera Dance Theatre Company in 1998, an Assistant Professor at the Ballet Institute, Academy of Arts 1999 to 2000, Adjunct Professor of Dance, as part of the Performance and Visual Arts Department at The American University in Cairo (fall 2010).
She is current founder & artistic director of the Cairo Contemporary Dance Center (CCDC), operating under the umbrella of MAAT for Contemporary Art.
In 2019, Mansour was selected by the International Theater Institute (ITI) to write the annual “International Dance Day Message” and in the same year she was also selected as “Top 15 Inspirational Egyptians for Arts and Culture.”
Mansour continues to works as a free-lance choreographer, performer and teacher nationally and internationally while creating, performing and developing her own choreographic work and language as an artist.
