Wednesday, April 17 at 7:30 pm
In the fourth episode of CINEMAY’s second season, May Zarhy will present P.A.D. (2007), a collaborative work by Ioannis Mandafounis and Fabrice Mazliah.
Ioannis Mandafounis (1981, Athens) is a choreographer and performer based in Geneva. Mandafounis studied dance at the National School of Athens and at the Conservatoire de Paris. Before becoming a freelance choreographer, he was part of the Gothenburg Opera Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater in The Hague (Netherlands). From 2005 to 2009, he was a member of the Forsythe Company. At that time he formed the Lemurius Company in Athens, and began collaborating with Fabrice Mazliah. In 2009, Mandafounis and Mazliah formed, together with May Zarhy, the choreographic collective mamaza, with whom he created and performed. He has been creating works in collaboration with other choreographers, among which: Twisted Pair (2013) with Nikos Dradonas, Katerina Skiada, and Olivia Ortega, ApersonA (2014) with Elena Giannotti, Sing the Positions (2017) with Manon Parent, It finishes when it finishes (2018) with Corpus Ensemble. Mandafounis teaches improvisation workshops and classical ballet inspired by “Budō” (modern Japanese martial arts), and creates choreographic works for other companies and schools like Ballet Junior Geneva, P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels, and Palucca Schule Dresden. In 2015, he received the Swiss Dance Awards in the category of Outstanding Male Dancer.
Fabrice Mazliah (1972, Geneva) is a choreographer and performer based in Frankfurt. After studying dance in Geneva with Beatriz Consuelo and Alicia de La Fuente, at the National School of Athens and at the Rudra Bejart Atelier in Lausanne, he was part of the Nederlands Dans Theater in The Hague (Netherlands) before joining, in 1997, the Ballett Frankfurt that transitioned into the Forsythe Company, for which Mazliah created its last evening In Act and Thought (2015), which premiered in Hellearu Dresden and LAB Frankfurt. In parallel to his work as a dancer and performer, since 2002 Mazliah has created and produced works, among which: Manufactured (2018), Conviviumepulum (2016), Eifo Efi (2013) with Ioannis Mandafounis, Garden State (2014), Z.E.R.O (2010) and Cover up (2011) with Ioannis Mandafounis and May Zarhy (mamaza), Double B(l)ind (2004) with Agnes Checkroun and Jone San Martin. Mazliah has been teaching workshops based on movement research and improvisation in places such as the Applied Theatre Studies — Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen Germany, P.A.R.T.S in Brussels and La Manufacture in Lausanne. In 2015, with a group of former members of the Forsythe Company, he initiated HOOD, a platform for creative exchange, which was based at PACT Zollverein in Essen, Germany until 2018.
About P.A.D. (2007)
“With the choreographic plastic piece, P.A.D. Fabrice Mazliah and Ioannis Mandafounis have created a most subtle choreographic study of the question of intimacy and the gaze of the other. Seated behind a railing on the four sides of the stage, the spectators look down on the performers, in an experiment on closeness that destabilize, unsettles, and distorts the perception of bodies caught in an ambiguous relationship. What are we willing to give (or to show) of ourselves? And what is it we ask (to see) of the other? Where does one draw the line between individuals? Centering on the unstable distance and proximity between the dancers themselves, but also between them and the audience, this work invites us to question the gap between notions of perception, intention, and interpretation.” (Veerle Vanderleen)
*The talk will be held in English.
Entrance: 35 NIS Seating is limited, tickets required.
Photo: Constance Neuenschwander