Undertainment', the new-look lambada and a grungy chorus line: bold dance at Lyon Biennale

"Rhythmic gasps and hoots from the dancers build a sonic matrix in which the work unfolds. There's a physical matrix too, the ensemble forming lines, circles and grids from which solos, duets and trios emerge. It's as if air itself had become a 3D maze, the dancers wriggling through its pathways without touching the sides, or each other."

"Undertainment was one of the most anticipated pieces at the 2025 Lyon Dance Biennale, where Ioannis Mandafounis's Lisa similarly set up clear structures within which the dancers improvise. This work, too, feels alert and alive. Yet where Forsythe is spare, Mandafounis is profuse: 1930s costumes, an onstage pianist (Gabriele Carcano) playing swirls of Faure, poetry by Osip Mandelstam voiced in several languages, a tumble of turbulent dancing that echoes the piano's splashing sonorities and feels full of ungraspably fleeting stories."

"A l'Ombre d'un Vaste Detail, Hors Tempete by Christian Rizzo also features a poetic text (by Celia Houdart), and though this sets the mutable mood it also pulls focus from choreography brimming with poetry of its own. It's a shadowy work that seems almost to dawn upon the stage, dark figures gaining clarity as they traverse the space, hands sometimes passing amicably across shoulders."

William Forsythe's Undertainment for Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company constructs a sonic and physical matrix through rhythmic gasps, hoots and precisely organized formations. The ensemble forms lines, circles and grids that yield solos, duets and trios, producing the impression of a three-dimensional maze navigated without contact. The dancers wear rehearsal-studio attire and move with compositional exactitude against an almost empty soundtrack punctuated by lo-fi hums. Ioannis Mandafounis's Lisa establishes clear structures for improvisation with 1930s costumes, an onstage pianist playing Faure, Mandelstam poetry voiced in several languages, and turbulent dance textures. Christian Rizzo's A l'Ombre d'un Vaste Detail, Hors Tempete uses Celia Houdart's poetic text to create shadowy, dawning scenes and linked gesture sequences.

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