In Europe, classical ballet has largely been replaced by contemporary dance. But at the Cyprus Contemporary Dance Festival, the classical—in the original sense of Mediterranean and ancient—makes a return within the contemporary. The Lebanese choreographer-dancer Ali Chahrour combines the histrionics of Middle Eastern mourning rituals with a pedestrian rhythm of unfolding. The dancers in the Italians Noemi Dalla Vecchia and Matteo Vignali’s Folklore Dynamics may be virtuosic in their range and casual in their presentation but they intermittently stamp their feet and link arms folkishly. Erroneous Encounters, by the festival’s lone Cypriot choreographer, Panayiotis Tofi, could be taking place in a gay club, given the relentless EDM beat and the male beauties with vacant stares, if not for the headgear. Those branches sprouting from the dancers’ faces call to mind the trees into which hapless mortals disappear at the hands of rapacious gods. With a leisurely schedule of one show a night, the festival would pair well with day trips to Mount Olympus or the beaches rimming the blue sea out of which Aphrodite emerged in her clamshell. —Apollinaire Scherr