Nacera Belaza was born in Medea Algeria. She moved to France at the age of 5. After a literature degree, she founded in 1989 her own dance company. Self-taught, she entered dance driven by the necessity to express herself and unravel the complexity of a dual cultural background. Her language emerged from the confined body, somehow imprisoned by cultural constraints during childhood and adolescence, drawing first from inner material, and later on from literature.
After studying Modern Literature at the University of Reims, she set up her own company in Paris in 1989.
Animated by a deep, serene and continuous breath, her gesture relies on patience, rigor and simplicity to face “the deafening din of our existences". Or how to give back to gesture its existential role?
Her work, recognised and praised by the French Ministry of Culture, earned her the title of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2015. In France, Nacera Belaza was awarded the Syndicat de la Critique Prize for her piece Le Cri and the SACD Choreographic Prize in 2017. In 2021, she was named one of the 100 Women of Culture by the French association Femmes de Culture.
She is associate artist to the Théâtre National de Chaillot in Paris and the MC93 in Bobigny.
She regularly tours in Europe, Africa, Asia, and North America, performing in prestigious festivals and venues. In Algeria, she founded an artistic cooperative offering training and awareness-raising programmes related to contemporary arts and dance.