Light. Something appears: an image, a formation, movement, development, transformation. Dark. And light. Something new: it is massive, it turns, it vibrates, it encompasses everything. Dark. And light. Surprise. And dark. And light. And dark.

"Join" makes a simple and yet difficult attempt: How can dancers come together at completely different points in their personal and professional trajectory? How can an ensemble of professionals working at the highest level dance together with a group of students? How do people come together in their diversity? What connections are possible beyond a standardising and unifying norm? "Join" takes a step in this direction for dance. Students from the city where the performance takes place dance together with the ensemble of the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company. The dramaturgy of the evening is determined by instant blackouts, which lend the scenes a sense of immediacy and constantly challenge the audience's perception.

"Join" is funded by the "Fonds Zero" programme of the German Federal Cultural Foundation. This is intended to support cultural institutions in trying out climate-friendly forms of production and new aesthetics with the lowest possible climate impact. The CO2-emissions are recorded during the process. Any emerging potential for cutting emissions is intended to make our working methods more sustainable in the future.

„Join“ unternimmt einen einfachen und doch schwierigen Versuch: Wie können Tänzer*innen an völlig unterschiedlichen Punkten ihrer Entwicklung zusammenkommen?

Ioannis

Choreography

Dancers of the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company

Dance students from the respective city

Dance

Pauline

Choreographic assistance

Philipp

Dramaturgy

Emanuele

Music

Stage and Lighting

Thomas

Costumes

Smaralia

Rehearsal manager

Join

Théâtre de la Ville

How do you get close to a person, really? By being told an intimate story? By looking deep into each other's eyes? By experiencing something special, perhaps challenging, together?

The relation between the private and the public has changed radically. Today, many people are no longer afraid to share details that would previously have been considered too private. At the same time, more and more people feel lonely. The way we understand ourselves and our own lives is virtually impossible to separate from the way we present ourselves to other people. Where does the urge to publicly share intimate things come from? And what is required of a connection in order to satisfy this longing?

In this work, the dancers reveal themselves personally – with their stories, memories, wishes. And perhaps body language and dance can create a stronger connection than words alone.

Neues Werk

New Creation

Bockenheimer Depot

Scarbo is a gnome, a goblin. Ioannis Mandafounis and Manon Parent borrowed the title from Maurice Ravel, whose music also opens the evening. The longer Manon Parent dances, the more the audience is drawn into her innermost world. A world replete with sadness, anger, joy, helplessness and strength. Those are the feelings the dancer expresses through her movements – immediately and unfiltered. All her cells seem to vibrate at different emotional frequencies. Showing ourselves in such diverse states is a freedom we rarely allow ourselves. This shared intimacy is the core of “Scarbo”. During the piece, the audience is free to consider whether the states in question are real or fictional, memories of the past or a personal story being told.

“Scarbo” explores the role of narration in contemporary dance in terms of function, form and meaning. The dancer herself is at the center of this narrative, which is about the interplay of body, soul and emotion.

The rhythmic dialogue of color, music and dance – which remains free, unconstrained and unpredictable – creates an atmosphere that transports the audience into the live version of an art film. 

Manon

Concept

Scarbo

ROHM theatre Kyoto

Hellerau - European Centre for the Arts

This is a full circle moment. William Forsythe is regarded as one of the most important choreographers of the late 20th century – and rightly so. His innovative approach to the tradition of ballet has allowed dance to go down paths that would otherwise have been difficult to imagine. From 1984 to 2004, Forsythe directed the Ballett Frankfurt and from 2005 to 2015 The Forsythe Company, which was later renamed Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company. Ioannis Mandafounis, the current artistic director of the company, was a dancer with Forsythe for several years and is therefore clearly influenced by him.

Live choreography, the improvisation methodology with which the company works today, builds on many of the principles developed by Forsythe and takes the paradigm of improvisation one step further. Now, this radicalised movement practice meets the artistic signature from which it once emerged. What will be created within this special connection?

William Forsythe has been active in the field of choreography for over 50 years. His work is acknowledged for reorienting the practice of ballet from its identification with classical repertoire to a dynamic 21st century art form. Forsythe danced with the Joffrey Ballet and later the Stuttgart Ballet, where he was appointed Resident Choreographer in 1976. In 1984, he began a 20-year tenure as director of the Ballet Frankfurt after which he founded and directed The Forsythe Company until 2015. Forsythe's deep interest in the fundamental principles of organisation of choreography has led him to produce a wide range of projects including installations, films, and web-based knowledge creation. While his work for the stage resides in the repertoire of ensembles worldwide, his installations are presented internationally in exhibitions and museums. Forsythe has been the recipient of numerous awards, which include the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale and DER FAUST German Theatre Award, both for lifetime achievement.

William

For Thomas Hauert, improvisation is not primarily a means of expressing oneself, but rather a means of creating and composing movements. Is it possible to free the body from the limits of thought? If you let it, it will find more complex and exciting movements than your brain could come up with.

Hauert founded the company ZOO at the end of the 90s. With a relatively constant constellation of dancers throughout, he has been exploring the tension between freedom and restriction in dance ever since. When dancers improvise together in a group, they have to find a new way of dealing with control. Improvisation can be very purposeful, it can give a group a common focus for their practice. Tasks, rules and restrictions can disrupt the conditioning of the body in such a way that something unexpected emerges. Freedom and resistance, individual and group, order and disorder, formlessness and form.

Thomas Hauert founded his company ZOO in Brussels in 1998. ‘Cows in Space’ was his first piece, which was immediately honoured at the Rencontres de Seine-Saint-Denis/Bagnolet. Since then, the company has developed more than 21 pieces. In addition to his work for ZOO, Hauert has been a guest choreographer for the Zurich Ballet, Toronto Dance Theatre, Candoco Dance Company, Ballet Junior de Genève and the Ballet de Lorraine, among others. Inspired by his choreographic work, Hauert developed an internationally recognised teaching method based on his movement research with ZOO. Since 2013, he has been the artistic director of the Bachelor's programme in contemporary dance at La Manufacture, the Lausanne School of Performing Arts.

Forsythe / Hauert

Schauspiel Frankfurt

Live-choreography, the methodology of Ioannis Mandafounis, allows for a choreography to be created on the spot. In “Lisa” this includes the dancers individually choosing when to enter and exit the stage. From this simple arrangement a lot of different situations can arise. The sudden appearing and disappearing creates surprising changes, a one-on-one encounter between two dancers might abruptly turn into a group scene. Someone is suddenly left alone and an emotional solo starts.

The piece combines these dramaturgical principles with poems by the lyricist Osip Mandelshtam from the Soviet Union and music by Gabriel Fauré. Historic costumes from the thirties provide a visual context to the texts which will be heard in the Russian original as well as in English and German translations. In this way shorter and longer narrative threads emerge, which the audience can choose to follow – or not.

Is this a crime scene? Or is it just business as usual? Is it better to be polite and say hello or to hide in the bushes as quickly as possible? Keeping both feet on the ground is of little use, if reality itself is shaking.

Dorothee

Gabriele

Piano

Lisa

Mandafounis / Forsythe

Theater Freiburg

Two dancers acting strangely. They talk incessantly and incomprehensibly. Where does their story come from? They describe an imaginary world, first with language, then more and more with their bodies. They do lots of things at the same time while also continuously engaging with their surroundings. The language becomes a whisper, a cry, singing, rhythm, music. „Sch!“ is the opposite of silence. The play shows a world filled with constant noise. Different impressions and bits of information stream in from all directions. Which voice should you listen to, which movement should you follow? Those who surrender to the improvised flow of dance, music and voice may even find out more about themselves than about the story of the two oddballs.

„Sch!“ is danced by two dancers from Regionteater Väst, which is Sweden's largest touring performing arts institution for young audiences and one of the country's largest dance and theatre producers. The Regionteater Väst creates accessible and challenging performances aimed primarily at people between the ages of 6 and 16.

Schedule

Join

Join

Scarbo

Scarbo

New Creation

Neues Werk

Join

Join

New Creation

Neues Werk

SCH!

SCH!

Sch!

SCH!

Forsythe / Hauert

Neues Werk

Neues Werk

Forsythe / Hauert

Neues Werk

Neues Werk

Mandafounis / Forsythe

Neues Werk

Lisa

Mandafounis / Forsythe

Neues Werk

Lisa