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2009 - Company creation
2009 - Creation of Z.E.RO
2011 - Creation of Cover Up
2011-2012 - Associated Artist at DeSingel
2012 - Creation of The Nikel Project, Asingeline, Context without content, Pausing
2012-2014 - Associated Artist At Mousonturm
2013 - Creation of Eifo Efi, Twisted Pair
2014 - Creation of Garden State, ApersonA
2015 - Company became Cie Ioannis Mandafounis
2015 - Creation of One One One, Soli
2015 - Swiss Dance Award, Outstanding Male Dancer
2015-2017 - supported by PRAIRIE - Migros Cultural Percentage
2016 - Creation of Ossip Mandelstam. A performance, Viel|leicht
2017 - Creation of NU, B-Cut, Sing the Positions, "Make sure you have exhausted all that is communicated through stillness and silence"
2018-2020 - the company benefits from a joint support from the City of Geneva, the State of Geneva and Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council
2018 - Creation of MayaBuff - a delirium from Mayakovsky-commissioned by the National Theater of Greece, It finishes when it finishes
2019 - Creation of Faded and Fearful Symmetries -commissioned by the Grand Théâtre de Genève
2020 - Creation of Cassandra’s footprints and Komm und birg dein Antliz - commissioned by the Opéra de Lyon
2021-2023 - the company benefits from a joint support from the City of Geneva, the State of Geneva and Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council
2021 - Creation of Scarbo and Bis.N.S (as usual) - with the dancers of the Opéra de Lyon
2021 - Company became Association ++1
2022 - Creation of Consens.us
2023 - Creation of A la Carte
2023 - Ioannis Mandafounis becomes the artistic director of the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company
The association Cie Projet 11 was created by Ioannis Mandafounis and Fabrice Mazliah in 2009. The Cie Projet 11 became Cie Ioannis Mandafounis in 2015.
The choreographers, convinced of what May Zarhy could offer to the artistic collective, then decided to bring her into their research work and creative exploration. All three had met at the Forsythe company, from which they inherited a specific and common taste for research. Through their work together, they developed a choreographic space, questioning the tension that exists between visual image and the physical feeling it produces in a viewer, in other words – the tension between the physical image and the visual feeling.
The choreographers constantly searched for new opportunities to acquaint spectators with dance, cultivating “a way of seeing”, making the spectator responsible for his or her experience as a viewer and inviting him or her to invest in what they are seeing in order to live a real experience. This desire to involve the spectator, to invite them to push open the “doors to perception”, so to speak, is a constant in their performances.
Mandafounis, Mazliah and Zarhy founded the art collective “Mamaza” and created several collaborative dance pieces such as – Z.E.R.O. (2009), Cover up (2011), The Nikel project – poems&songs (2012) – and choreographic installations : Asingeline (2012), Context without content (2012), Garden State (2014).
In 2012 the members of the Mamaza collective decided to discontinue their creations together, and Ioannis Mandafounis looked to new horizons. He assumed the management of Cie Projet 11 and renamed the company after his name.
As an extension of his collaborations with the former members of the collective Mamaza, he has created Pausing (with May Zarhy, 2012) and Eifo Efi (with Fabrice Mazilah, 2013). Ioannis Mandafounis has also met new personalities with whom he has created Twisted Pair (with Nikos Dragonas, Olivia Ortega, and Katerina Skiada, 2013), ApersonA (with Elena Gionnatti and Nina Vallon, 2014), One One One (with Aoife McAtamney, 2015), Soli (with Laurent Chétouane, Roberta Mosca and Mikael Marklund, 2015), Ossip Mandelstam. A performance (with Bruce Myers, Elena Giannotti and Roberta Mosca, 2016), NU (with Emilia Giudicelli, 2017), Sing the Positions (with Manon Parent, 2017), "Make sure you have exhausted all that is communicated through stillness and silence" (with Brice Catherin, 2017), It finishes when it finishes (with Corpus Ensemble, 2018), Faded (with Antigone Frida, 2019), Cassandra’s Footprints (with Antigone Frida and Efi Rabsilber, 2020), Scarbo (with Manon Parent, 2021), Bis.N.S (as usual) (with the dancers of the Opéra de Lyon, 2021) Consens.us (2023) and A la Carte (2023)..
In addition, Ioannis receives commissions from international theaters and companies to create original works In-Formation (2011), Howl (2012) and YES (2023) for the Ballet Junior de Genève, Viel|leicht for the Theater Junge Generation in Dresden (2016), HA for La Manufacture in Lausanne (2017), MayaBuff - a delirium from Mayakovsky for the National Theater of Greece in Athens (2018), Fearful Symmetries for the Grand Théâtre de Genève (2019), Komm und birg den Antliz for The Opéra de Lyon and Point of no return for the Greek National Opera (2020), If Only I Knew for the company Norrdans (2021) and En Petit Comité for the Marchepied Cie (2023).
In 2011-2012, the members of the Cie Projet 11 were named associated artists of the deSingel theater in Antwerp (Belgium).
In 2012, Ioannis Mandafounis was supported by RESO Swiss as well as the Module Dance Program for Dance from the European Union with the project Pausing, which was commissioned by the Théâtre de l’Usine in Geneva and currently tours around Switzerland and Europe.
In 2012-2014, the members of the collective mamaza were also supported by the Bundes Kultur Schtiftung (Germany) under the frame of the Doppel Pass Program and were named resident artist at Mousonturm Kunstlerhaus Frankfurt.
The dance pieces Twisted Pair (2013) and ApersonA (2014) were co-produced by the program Prairie – Pour-cent culture Migros.
The Cie Ioannis Mandafounis is co-produced by the program Prairie – Pour-cent culture Migros for 2015-2017 seasons.
In 2015, Ioannis Mandafounis received the Swiss Dance Awards in category Outstanding Male Dancer.
In 2023, the choreographer becomes the artistic director of the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company (DFDC) in Germany.
The Cie Ioannis Mandafounis benefits from a joint support from the City of Geneva, the State of Geneva and Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council for 2018-2023.