Dresden Franfurt Dance Company & Rosalind Crisp

The dance of the DFDC is just as closely linked to classical dance as it is to other developments in contemporary dance history. The double bill “Byways” combines a piece by Ioannis Mandafounis, in which he delves into dance history, and a new work by Rosalind Crisp, who is internationally recognised for the way she breaks with the conventions of dance performance.

Rosalind Crisp's artistic passion is to show how movement can constantly re-emerge when freed from fixed patterns and meanings. Her compositional means invite the dancers to absorb, imitate and convey constant change. In this way, the audience's attention is focussed on how movement is created and not on the individual movements. The work is presented in a setting in which the audience can move around the space and get close to the dancers. The pianist and composer Frédéric Blondy will be improvising live.

As much as Ioannis Mandafounis is influenced by the innovations of dance improvisation in the second half of the 20th century, his artistic path is also that of a ballet dancer. To pay tribute to this dual heritage, he has created a trio that contrasts classical dance technique with the development of dance improvisation and his own method of live choreography. Two dancers from the ensemble meet dancer Jón Vallejo from the Semperoper Dresden. It goes deep into the history of dance and also into the life story of a dancer. The passion, the bite, the perseverance, the glamour, the doubts, the triumphs and the injuries - it's all fictional and it's all true.