Carter Omari

Omari ‘Motion’ Carter is a screendance practitioner, body percussionist and hip-hop dance culture aficionado born and raised in London, England. After graduating with a First Class BA (Hons) degree in Performing Arts at London Metropolitan University, Carter went on to perform for 7 years in the West End and international touring productions of ‘Stomp!’. Where his love for rhythm, percussion, juggling and clowning grew exponentially. Carter continues to practice body percussion and explore the possibilities and benefits of this practice within dance education and dance-film. This has led him to teach body percussion across the globe and work in collaboration with various body-music practitioners including Ayaka Takai (Japan), Pedro Consorte (Brazil), Katherine Kramer (USA), and Sandy Silva (USA/Canada).​

From the years 2011 – 2025, Carter was the founder and creative director of award-winning screendance production company Motion Dance Collective (MDC), in which he directed, produced, choreographed and performed in over 50 screendance works; screening work at over 100 festivals worldwide; including Loikka Dance Film Festival (Helsinki, Finland), Cinedans Dance on Screen festival (Amsterdam, Netherlands), British Urban Film Festival (London, UK), Lightmoves Festival of Screendance (Limerick, Ireland), San Francisco Dance Film Festival (USA), and Wisconsin Film Festival (USA), to name a few. Through MDC, Carter strengthened his mission to make and curate screendance works that brought underrepresented bodies, cultures and dance-styles to the forefront of the lens.

​​​​​In 2020, Omari graduated from the trailblazing MA in Screendance at London Contemporary Dance School (LCDS), where he became an assistant lecturer in dance until 2023. During his Master’s study, Carter developed his final dissertation which examined the role of hip-hop dance within the diegesis of screendance practice, highlighting digital hip-hop dance narratives from an urban-British perspective. Additionally, he explored the label of “urban” within the context of hip-hop dance on screen. This was achieved both through a bespoke ‘Urban Dance on Screen’ curation at the very first FrameRush Screendance Festival at LCDS in 2019, and also with the utilisation of the video-essay format. The latter fused video references, spoken word poetry and academic prose, and was created with the aim of forging stronger footholds between the makers and the academics within the orbit of his research.

As a director, videographer, and editor, Carter has created digital-dance and documentary content for Breakin’ Convention Hip Hop Theatre Festival (UK), Parkinson’s UK, Dance Woking (UK), DanceXchange (UK), South East Dance, Akademi (UK), Calmer UK, National Centre for Circus Arts (UK), Jason Mabana Dance (UK), Pagrav Dance Company (UK), and Mouvement Perpétuel (Canada). As an independent choreographer and dancer, he has created works for Google, Britain’s Got Talent, Weetabix, Stanton Warriors, Greenpeace UK, Diabetes UK, and ADAD (Association of Dance from the African Diaspora).

​​​​Currently, Carter is an Assistant Professor in the Dance Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He teaches Hip Hop Technique and Theory, which focuses on groove-based dance techniques alongside breaking, popping, locking, and house dance styles; Screendance Production where students learn to create and develop digital-dance works; and Body Percussion, which provides critical body-music practice and rhythmical development. Students can expect a kind, fun, and active atmosphere as they encounter practices that can be both physically challenging and technically complex. Carter’s goal as an instructor is to allow students to learn the rules in order to thoughtfully break them, while also leaving participants with an understanding of the social-political histories that these art-forms were brought to fruition within.

His latest research project ‘Our Vibes: A Vibrotactile Screendance Installation’, combines a vibrating viewing platform with a body-percussion dance-film, allowing audiences standing on the platform to feel the sound from the screendance in front of them. This research, akin to Carter’s practice, is interdisciplinary and multi-hyphenated. This foundation that Carter has built, in several interdisciplinary practices, has led him to be an artist and professor that favours process over output, and the deconstruction of industry and academic standards to allow other forms of expression to take precedence.

Education

• MA Screendance (with Distinction), London Contemporary Dance School, 2020
• BA Performing Arts (First Class), London Metropolitan University, 2011

Select Awards and Honors

• Honourable Mention, Wallachia International Film Festival, 2022
• Nominated for Best Music/Soundtrack, Exeter International Film Festival, 2022
• Shortlisted for Bob Lockyer Award for Digital Innovation (Final Three), One Dance UK Awards, 2022
• Winner of Best Short Film, Thessaloniki International G.L.A.D. Film Festival (LGBTI+) (Greece), 2022
• Winner of the Best LGBT Pride Celebration Film Award, Colours of Love – International Queer Film Festival (India), 2021
• Honourable Mention, Assurdo Film Festival, Milan, Italy, 2020
• Winner of UK Screendance Award, Perth, Scotland, 2017
• C the Film – Youtube Award, Edinburgh, Scotland, 2015