Choreographer Ioannis Mandafounis’ piece has a thousand possibilities in every moment. If Only I Knew is a creative questioning of norms that different places and rooms possess. The dance takes place and becomes a silent rebellious act. Yet, in all its silence, dance can be so radical that it possesses space and time – not the other way around. How do we experience the public space and how does it affect us? What happens in the meeting of spatial conventions and the immediate legibility of movements? The piece is designed and adapted to situations and experiences in the present where it is located. Ioannis calls this immediate dramaturgy and storytelling.

Concept: Ioannis Mandafounis
Dancers: Leila Verlinden, Chang Liu, Jonathan Starr, Sam Huczkowski, Lander Casier, Kevin Julianto, Damini Gairola, Courtney Mazeika, Arūnas Mozūraitis

The performance is 60 min and takes place in Hagsätra library and in the library of Haninge kulturhus.

Ioannis Mandafounis was born in 1981 in Athens and now lives in Geneva. Both his parents – Swiss mother and Greek father – are dancers. He received his first dance lessons at The National School of Dance in Greece, and already at the age of 14, he was admitted to The Paris Conservatory. Mandafounis traveled alone to the French capital, where he lived with a host family while studying. This inaugurated his international career as a dancer, initially as a member of The Göteborg Opera Ballet, then at The Nederlands’ Dans Theater II, Jiří Kylián’s stable for young talent in The Hague, before he went on in 2005 to spend five years as a member of The Forsythe Company. All of his interventions are suffused with his lust for innovation in the bodily art of dance.

Norrdans is a professional producer and dance ensemble for contemporary dance, based in Härnösand.

Photo: Lia Jacobi/Norrdans