Contemporary in Frankfurt: Movement Live

If you want to put contemporary dance into context in Frankfurt, you encounter William Forsythe’s legacy not just as a look back. The Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company is the successor to the Forsythe Company and continues to present Forsythe’s works today. This means that in Frankfurt, both choreographic works and questions that reach into contemporary dance practice are present: How can movement be organized without specifying every detail?

Forsythe’s influence is not a uniform style that all dancers copy. What matters more is an awareness of structure, space and the possibilities of the body. A movement can be precisely placed and still take on different qualities. This sets contemporary dance apart from the idea that a choreography must consist of a fixed sequence of identical steps.

If you want to compare other forms in Frankfurt, the overview of dance styles in Frankfurt can help. This page focuses deliberately on contemporary approaches and their combination of order and openness, not on choosing a partner dance style.

Under Ioannis Mandafounis, the choreography of the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company is created anew live through the dancers’ improvisation in every performance. This does not mean that everything happens without preparation. Improvisation requires attentiveness, physical skill and a shared framework so that individual decisions come together as a cohesive performance.

As a spectator, this shifts your perspective: you can observe how an impulse is picked up, changed or dropped. One person might turn while another keeps their distance. A repetition can build tension; a change of direction alters who is in control of the space at that moment. These relationships form a kind of composition, even when not every gesture has been set in advance.

The difference from fixed choreography, then, is not simply a matter of planning versus chance. An improvised evening can also include rules, tasks or recurring motifs. What remains open is how the dancers interpret these guidelines in the moment. This makes every performance a new rendition, without the performers losing their shared sense of cohesion.

If you want to try contemporary dance yourself, you don't need a perfect line or a large movement repertoire to begin with. What matters more is whether you can notice what your body is doing and how a movement can be changed. For example, an exercise might involve changing direction, delaying an impulse or responding to the distance from another person.

A course might focus more on technique, improvisation or choreographic material. The labels alone don't always tell you which. Read the course description and ask whether previous experience is expected, how much free movement is involved and whether the group develops material together. The course overview for Frankfurt is a good starting point for comparing options.

There are also opportunities to get involved in Frankfurt outside of a course: the Compagnie invites everyone to dance parties at the Bockenheimer Depot and takes part in Tanztag Rhein-Main. If you want to watch first and then get involved yourself, Tanztag Rhein-Main can be a helpful introduction. That way, the term becomes a concrete movement experience.