In the organizer's words:

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 immerses himself in dance history, and a new work by Rosalind Crisp, who is internationally renowned for the way she breaks with the conventions of dance performance.

"One forward, two back"

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 is creating a new work for a small ensemble that contrasts classical dance technique with the development of dance improvisation and his own method of live choreography. Dancers from the ensemble meet dancer Jón Vallejo, first soloist of the Semperoper Ballett. It goes deep into the history of dance and also into the life story of a dancer. The passion, the bite, the perseverance, the glamor, the doubts, the triumphs and the injuries - it's all fictional and it's all true.

"Seen Unseen"

Rosalind Crisp's artistic passion is to use compositional means to "forget" movements and instead show how they can constantly re-form when freed from fixed patterns and meanings. She works with the constant mutability associated with the reality of our material bodies - reflecting ever more clearly a world that is in the process of disintegrating. Her compositional means invite the dancers to absorb, reproduce and convey this constant change.

She is not concerned with the psychological experience, but with the body. One principle that enables this vulnerability is to dwell on the transitions in which something is neither one nor the other. In this way, the audience's attention is focused on how movement is created and not on the individual movements. In Crisp's practice, breaks are just as valid and important as flow. 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 improvise live and enrich the dance with his equally physical piano playing.