Dorothée Munyaneza left Kigali with her family in 1994 and moved to the UK. She studied music at the Jonas Foundation in London and social sciences at the University of Canterbury before moving to France. In 2004 she wrote and performed the soundtrack for Terry George’s film Hotel Rwanda, and in 2005 performed on the album Anatomic by Afro Celt Sound System. In 2010 she released her first solo album, recorded with the producer Martin Russell, and in 2012 she worked on the album Earth Songs by the composer James Brett.
She establishes a dialogue between music and other means of expression, for example combining Afro-folk, dance and texts by Woody Guthrie when working with the guitarist Seb Martel, or mixing dance, poetry and experimental music with the musician Jean-François Pauvros, the choreographer Ko Murobushi and the composer Alain Mahé. Also with Alain Mahé she has worked on in situ performances at the Pompidou Centre and at the Mucem, as well as creating original choreographic pieces.
In 2006 she met François Verret and performed in Sans Retour, Ice, Cabaret and Do you remember, no I don’t. Since then, Dorothée Munyaneza has worked with Alain Buffard, Alain Mahé, Stéphanie Coudert, Ko Murobushi, Rachid Ouramdane, Maud Le Pladec, Jean-François Pauvros, Radouan Mriziga, Maya Mihindou and Ben LaMar Gay.
In 2013 she founded her own company, Kadidi, and presented Samedi Détente at the Théâtre de Nîmes. In 2017, she created Unwanted, her second show, premiered at the Avignon Festival. Both works have toured internationally from 2014 to the present day.
In 2020, Dorothée created Mailles, a choral piece for six women, at the Charleroi Danse Biennale. She also translated Kae Tempest’s Hopelessly Devoted into French, published by L’Arche under the title Inconditionnelles—a work she will stage at the Bouffes du Nord in November this year. This was followed by a series of site-specific performances, and in 2023 by Toi, moi, Tituba…, a duet with musician and oud player Khyam Allami, premiered at the Tanz im August in Berlin.
In 2024, she received the Salavisa European Dance Award at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. That same year, she created umuko, a piece for five young Rwandan artists, presented at the Festival de Marseille.
An associate artist at the Théâtre de la Ville from 2018 to 2021, at the Camargo Foundation from 2022 to 2024, and at the Maison de la Danse and the Biennale de la danse de Lyon from 2023 to 2025, Dorothée Munyaneza is currently an associate artist at the Théâtre National de la Danse de Chaillot through 2026.
