The Cyprus Contemporary Dance Festival is back and preparations for its 26th edition are in full swing. From June 4 to 22, a rich programme of dance performances will take place at the Rialto Theatre – and the Nicosia Municipal Theatre for one night – as seven countries present ten productions.

Just like every year, the festival focuses on cultural plurality and bodily expression as a canvas for social questions and emotional transformation. Here’s what to expect.

Inaugurating the festival on June 4 and at 8.30pm is the Vénus Anatomique performance from France. Inspired by 18th-century anatomical wax figures, this work explores femininity as a constructed object. With puppet-like aesthetics and mechanical gestures, five women embody bodies in survival mode, deconstructing dominant representations of the female form.

The Lebanese production The Love Behind My Eyes on June 6 is a poetic elegy to love that was never allowed to exist. Through Arabic poetry, song and physical expression, Chahrour delivers a deeply emotional work on love, loss, and resistance to social and religious constraints.

Full Moon, another French production is an audio-visual journey with African dancers, inspired by free jazz and their cultural heritage. Their instinctive movements and symbolic puppets transform creation into a continuous act of identity and rebirth. The performance will be presented at the Nicosia Municipal Theatre on June 8 before the festival returns to Rialto Theatre on June 11 for a repetition of the show.

On the following night, the Cypriot Erroneous Encounters will have three performers embody the fragmentation of the self after trauma. Through live electronic music and poetic text, the piece reveals the body’s fragility and the growing disconnect of contemporary life.

Then on June 14, Cuir from Belgium is a duet about consent, strength and partnership beyond dominance and submission. Two men, bound by harnesses, engage in a physical exchange where attraction and resistance coexist.

Italy’s Folklore Dynamics on June 16 is a take on tradition, as the performance becomes a platform of resistance, with choreography that asserts collective identity and political intent. He aquí un acto romántico on June 18, is a work dedicated to both physical and emotional falls. Three performers move through moments of violence and tenderness in a ritual journey toward catharsis, romantic surrender and rebirth.

Birdboy on June 20 is a tender, chaotic inner journey seen through the eyes of a child who doesn’t fit in. With dance, sound and objects, Birdboy celebrates difference and the transformative power of imagination.

The final performance, Sonoma is a fevered cry of existence inspired by Buñuel and surrealism and led by one of Europe’s leading dance companies, Marcos Morau and La Veronal, giving the festival a powerful finale.

26th Cyprus Contemporary Dance Festival

Ten productions from seven countries. June 4-22. Rialto Theatre, Limassol. www.rialto.com.cy