Ariane Mamon

The Berklee Flamenco Ensemble, with Javier Limón, performing at the David Friend Recital Hall in Dec 2012.

A few dancers of the Berklee West African Drum & Dance Ensemble, at the Sheraton Hotel (Boston) in November 2012.

Performance at the Cultural Festival "Rencontres Culturelles" in La Motte-Chalancon (France), in July 2008.

Performance with the Contemporary Ballet company of Vaucresson, at the Theatre André Malraux in Rueil-Malmaison (France), in June 2008.

Other than jazz, Ariane is also passionate about world music, especially brazilian music, middle-eastern music, klezmer, and flamenco music. She was involved in the past, in the Berklee Flamenco ensemble led by a multiple Grammy Award-winning producer Javier Limón, with whom they performed at the Berklee David Friend recital hall, as part of a collaboration with the Middle-Eastern Fusion ensemble, led by Assistant Professor, Christiane Karam.

She is also very drawn to traditional African music and dance. At Berklee, she is still involved in the West African Drum & Dance ensemble. The ensemble performed with percussion students of the Hartt School of Music at the Lincoln Theater in Hartford, CT, in December 2012; and in January 2013, the ensemble performed at the Berklee Performance Center, as part of a celebration of African culture, art and music.

Dance has always played a very big part in Ariane's life, she's been dancing ever since she can remember. She started taking ballet lessons when she was 4, in her hometown in Vaucresson. She kept taking lessons there for 10 years, and developed a very strong passion for dancing, and at age 14, she spent all of her free time after school at her dance school. Her teacher introduced her to contemporary ballet, choreographers like Béjart, Lifar, or Balanchine; and also musicians such as Gotan Project, Pink Martini, Björk, and even jazz musicians like Oscar Peterson or Brad Mehldau. She says: "After spending so much time, discovering the boundaries of my body, I felt like I could do anything! I became "friends" with my body, and that helps me everyday with my singing." She claims that one of her favorite things in the world is to be on stage, regardless if she is singing, or dancing, and try to connect deeply with the audience. For a long time she was convinced that she wanted to be a professional dancer as a future career, until she realized that her love for dancing only existed because of her even stronger love for music.

She also enjoys teaching, and is currently an English tutor at Berklee for international students. She especially likes making connections between English grammar and jazz harmony.

When she was 12, she wrote a skit for the NGO peace campaign (Grains-of-Peace) "kids section" of their website, which has registered over 20,000 clicks.

The Other Ariane