"N.N.N.N." appears as a mind split into four parts: four dancers in a state of constant, filigree connection.

The dancer's audible breath score binds them as a tightly linked entity; their limbs become singular voices, each tuned and in counterpoint to the others, as they enter into a complex, intense state of music making.

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, Der DER FAUST German Theatre Award and the Kyoto Price, all for lifetime achievement.

William

Choreography, Light, Stage, Costumes

Dancers of DFDC

Dance

N.N.N.N.

“Body me” is built from a simple decision: the bodies of the others become the source. Each dancer’s movement is not invented in isolation but drawn out of someone else’s—observed, touched, interrupted, borrowed, translated. The choreography directs how material is generated: bodies reading bodies, bodies shaping bodies, bodies passing on information that cannot be fully owned.

There is no linear narrative here, but a set of shifting situations. Solo becomes duet, duet becomes group, intimacy becomes distance, support becomes resistance. The piece treats the body as both matter and meaning: a physical reality, and a site onto which society projects care, fear, desire, control. We continually concern ourselves with the bodies of others—who may move, who must stop, who is allowed to be close, who is kept away.

“Body me” stays with that tension. It asks what is created when the body is not only the center of dance, but the central question in general: how do we handle one another, how do we learn from one another, and what do we lose—or recover—through the act of making movement together.

Cyril Baldy, born in France, is a highly regarded dancer, choreographer, teacher and rehearsal director. He trained in dance from 1993 to 1997 at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris. His professional career began in 1997 with the Jeune Ballet de France. Shortly afterwards, he moved to Nederlands Dans Theater II and subsequently to Nederlands Dans Theater I under the direction of Jiří Kylián, where he danced until 2002.

Baldy then moved to Ballett Frankfurt and finally joined The Forsythe Company in 2005, where he danced until 2014 under the artistic direction of William Forsythe. Since 2014, he has been working freelance as a choreographer and teacher, as well as a rehearsal director and ballet master for Forsythe’s works.

He has worked with numerous renowned companies, including Ballet BC, Nederlands Dans Theater, Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon and Pacific Northwest Ballet.

Cyril

Choreography

Body Me

Down the Road

Bockenheimer Depot

Ioannis Mandafounis continuously works with the ensemble on his improvisational practice. Bringing together onto a big stage movements, relationships and situations that arise fleetingly in the moment is a particular challenge. Over the years, Mandafounis has therefore repeatedly experimented with ways of breaking away from the traditional, frontal stage setup.

This is often achieved by slightly shifting the framing of a performance on stage towards a more direct relationship between the dancers and the audience. In this way, the dance derives its significance not as a visual event, but as a relational one: it is not about representation, but about experiences. This season Mandafounis is once more creating a full-length work for the entire ensemble.

Ioannis

Neues Werk

William Forsythe is rightfully regarded as one of the most important choreographers of the late 20th century. His innovative approach to the tradition of ballet has opened up directions for dance that would otherwise be 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.

At the end of his career Forsythe returned to the place of this legacy of many years and developed a new work with the company for the first time. Starting from a toolbox of improvisational construction, he creates a structural order which, instead of signifying something else, offers an aesthetic pleasure in itself.

Like in a kaleidoscope, patterns emerge that are always unpredictable and surprising yet within a clear framework. The dancers explore the movement system that they themselves form to its limits. The audience is invited to follow this exploration and experience the work as a living, breathing system.

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, DER FAUST German Theatre Award and the Kyoto Price, all for lifetime achievement.

Dancers of the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company

Choreographic assistance

Pauline

Rehearsal manager

Tanja

Light

Dorothee

Costumes

Undertainment

Sergei Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto is considered a particular challenge for pianists. Beyond the technical virtuosity, which certainly contributes to its appeal, the music is characterised by an extraordinary emotional complexity.

In his creation for the DFDC, Thomas Hauert brings to the stage the concerto of the 1982 recording with Martha Argerich. The ensemble immerses itself in the music and enters into a playful dialogue with it. The dancers interpret the music from their subjective perception with their bodies and engage with the rhythm, dynamics and emotional contrasts. At the same time, they interact with each other in a complex interplay.

Hauert brings with him principles and rules for improvisation that have been developed working with his own company ZOO for over more than 25 years, which rely less on control and more on the collective intelligence of everyone involved. This approach is juxtaposed with Rachmaninoff in an interesting way. While the latter is an exemplary creator figure that seems to hover above his work, authoritatively dictating the musicians, including the soloist, Hauert's practice is distinguished from such an elevated concept of genius in favour of a radically collaborative creative process. The dance does not perceive the music as a command, but uses it as a stimulus, as a playground, as a counterpart in a constantly renewing and surprising dialogue.

Thomas Hauert founded his company ZOO in Brussels in 1998. ‘Cows in Space’ was his first piece, which was immediately honoured at the Rencontres chorégraphiques internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis. 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, the Toronto Dance Theatre, the Candoco Dance Company, the Ballet Junior de Genève and the Ballet de Lorraine, among others.

Inspired by his choreographic work, Hauert developed an internationally recognized 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 – Haute école des arts de la scène in Lausanne. In 2025 he was awarded the Grand Prix Darstellende Künste / Hans-Reinhart-Ring for his outstanding carrier as a dancer and choreographer.

Thomas

Philipp

Dramaturgy

Playing with Sergei, Martha and the Others

Forsythe / Hauert

Schauspiel Frankfurt

Human encounters are always unpredictable. You eye one another, rush ahead, wait, circle each other, stumble, suddenly stop, start again - and maybe realize, ah, yes, we can understand each other.

The scenes in "À la carte" use different props, sound effects, music and lighting to allow for a variety of dance styles, atmospheres and topics. The starting point is always the encounter between the ensemble and the audience, just as if they were cooking a colorful menu together. The framework for this is Ioannis Mandafounis' dance methodology, which makes it possible to create a choreography live on stage. Almost nothing that the dancers do in this production is predetermined. All movements arise from the meeting of the different bodies.

"À la carte" was the first production by the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company under the artistic direction of Ioannis Mandafounis. With this work, the ensemble presents its dance practice, which is based as much on the exchange between the individual artists as it is on communication with the audience.

Manon

Musical direction

Anna

Stage and Lighting

Emanuele

Live Electronic Music

À la carte

Forsythe / Mandafounis

LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura

Hellerau - European Centre for the Arts

In confined spaces one longs for vastness; in tohuwabohu for simplicity and clarity. Often something contains its own opposite. The images and situations in “This Beautiful Messy Thing” are characterised by such tensions. Where does the urge for change lead?

Perhaps one can simply enjoy the contrasts themselves, rather than hoping for a moment when all desires are fulfilled. In dance you can play with the limits of the situation rather than being held back by them. Objects that might serve as building blocks for a stage design refuse such a utilitarian order and instead assert their own life as a noisy choreography of objects. Probably quite a bit is flying through the air.

In the hands of drummer Philipp Danzeisen samples of various noises blend with the sounds of the drums. The lively, organic physicality of the dancers, both confined and safeguarded by the stage design, really close to the audience or scattered in space, appears both vulnerable and powerful. It is a piece by Mandafounis, but even louder – and quieter.

The new piece "Here is There" by Ioannis Mandafounis celebrate its world premiere on 04.06.2025 in Frankfurt at Bockenheimer Depot.

Sophie

Lander

Audrey

Liam

Antonin

Simon

Composition, Drums

Stage

Nastia

Dietrich

Pre-Rehearsals and Research

This Beautiful Messy Thing

If you look closely, you can discern patterns even in seemingly random actions. If you look for long enough, you can observe how they change. With his first work for the DFDC, Thomas Bradley invites us to take such a close look. He approaches choreography through game-like, social systems.

Sustained attention creates a charged atmosphere where rules and conditions bring the dancers’ decision-making into focus. Whilst each dancer has their own strategies, a shared goal sustains their relation. The costumes, too, have a decisive influence on the action. In a carefully structured space, the choreography meets two further acoustic elements: the sonic traces of dismantling an object and a solo sonata for trumpet by HK Gruber.

Thomas Bradley was born in Cootamundra, Australia and trained at the NZ School of Dance before joining Sydney Dance Company in 2012. In 2015 he joined Australian Dance Theatre. From 2017-2023 he was dancer, pedagogue and costume designer for Emanuel Gat Dance. Since 2023, he works for the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company as dancer and repeatedly also as costume designer.

Bradley’s solo work has been presented across Europe among others at Butohpolis (International Butoh Art Festival, Warsaw, Poland), Teatr Rozbark (Bytom, Poland), Fuori Programma (Rome, Italy), International Dance Week Budapest, Le Louvre (Paris, France), Rez Gauche (Bruxelles, Belgium), Thessaloniki Queer Arts Festival (Thessaloniki, Greece), Garage 19 (Corfu Island, Greece), SOLO International Contemporary Dance Festival (Ankara, Turkey) and O.Z.O.R.A. Festival (Hungary). As costume designer he has been commissioned among others by StaatsBallett Berlin, Scottish Dance Theatre, TANZ LINZ (Austria) and The Opera Graz (Austria). Bradley is co-founder of performance collective LANDBREAKERS and facilitator of the choreographic ensemble PLAYWORK-GROUP.

Marina

Solène

Ichiro

Samuel

Dance Artists

Zachary

Sound Design

Louella May

Outside Eye

Several Rhythms Sort Thoughtfully

Here is There

The miniatures tell little stories. They are about a glamorous boxing match, funny robots that repair each other, a furious football match, a mysterious fire, friendships with more than one heart, and flying superheroes.

Together with children in Argentina and Switzerland, Teresa Rotemberg has developed imaginative stories and drawings that also speak of resilience and optimism. From these the choreographer, together with the dancers, developed a movement language that gives time and space to the worlds of children.

Choreographer Teresa Rotemberg’s company MAFALDA captivates its audience with unique and multi-layered worlds. The works, sometimes narrative, sometimes abstract, often combine highly virtuosic dance elements with humorous, whimsical, thoughtful and poetic scenes and images, and frequently address the big questions of life and living together. The DFDC has now invited one of its productions to Germany for the first time.

Schedule

Here is There

This Beautiful Messy Thing

Several Rhythms Sort Thoughtfully

Down the Road

N.N.N.N.

Body Me

Down the Road

N.N.N.N.

Body Me

Forsythe / Hauert

Undertainment

Playing with Sergei, Martha and the Others

Miniaturen / Miniaturas

Miniaturen / Miniaturas

Forsythe / Hauert

Undertainment

Playing with Sergei, Martha and the Others

Forsythe / Mandafounis

Undertainment

À la carte

Forsythe / Hauert

Undertainment

Playing with Sergei, Martha and the Others

Forsythe / Mandafounis

Undertainment

À la carte

Neues Werk

Neues Werk

Neues Werk

Neues Werk