Germaul Barnes is a choreographer, director, master educator, scholar, and designer with a multifaceted career spanning more than thirty years in contemporary dance. Global in vision and influence, he is known for a bold, urgent, energetic movement style steeped in spirituality and optimism. His work regularly reflects his in-depth knowledge of and interest in anthropology, dance of the African Diaspora, musicality, and social justice. He is currently the Artistic and Executive Director of Southern DanceWorks, Modern/Contemporary Instructor at the Alabama School of Fine Arts, and curator for Contemporary Improvisation for Black Men. He serves as Board President for The Flourish Alabama. Barnes is a BESSIE Award-winning former dancer and current répétiteur for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. Barnes is the choreographer of The Bob Marley Musical, which premiered in 2015 at Center Stage in Baltimore, MD. He has created more than 50 works for his dance collective Viewsic Dance, presented on stages and by companies across the world, including SummerStage, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, 92nd Street Y, ICA Boston, Movement Research at the Judson Church, the International Modern Dance Festival (Belarus), Ghana National Dance Company, International Dance Theatre Festival (Lublin, Poland), Friends of Tafo (London, England), Jasmyn Fyffe Dance (Toronto, Canada), and beyond.  He has served on the faculty and as a guest choreographer for the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, Fordham BFA Program at The Ailey School,  University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, and the Joffrey Ballet School Summer Intensive, and Alabama Ballet. Barnes has served as a choreographer adviser for One Dance-UK’s -Dance of the African Diaspora and Movement Research, and advisory board member and curator for the Thelma Hill Performance Arts Center in Brooklyn, New York. 

He has also worked with Katherine Dunham, Eleo Pomare, Pilobolus, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, Group Motions Dance Company, Philadanco, Pacific Conservatory Theatre, and as a guest artist for numerous ballet and contemporary companies.