William Forsythe in my World

William Forsythe is a pivotal part of current dance today. His method is taught to many dancers and implemented by many choreographers. In addition his deconstruction of ballet has changed the view of the ballet world and his work has become a new standard. His work is so influential that many ballet choreographers have tried to recreate the aesthetic and work in a derivative of the style Forsythe has created. The improvisation techniques created by Forsythe are also something that I personally find extremely valuable in creating choreography. They way that Forsythe moves is extremely captivating and his techniques have clearly come directly out of his natural abilities. It is also very interesting that Forsythe has worked in giving dance and ballet in particular a level of high conceptual art pairing it highly with the field of architecture, mathematics, and design. Forsythe has the ability to even verbally articulate the complicated nature of his work importantly giving his work great validity in the public eye. I have greatly enjoyed researching William Forsythe and his contribution in the field range from breathtaking dance works, conceptual techniques, and ultimately giving the field a big step foreword into proving the validity and complexity of the art of dance.

Why is Forsythe such a pivotal member of the dance world?

William Forsythe is a true pioneer of dance especially in the field of ballet. As one can see his work has evolved immensely and moved farther and farther from the aesthetic of ballet. What is truly amazing is that his work was created on ballet dancers who know nothing but ballet steps. Forsythe took the time and knowledge to train these dancers to move in his style by giving them improvisational structures and tools. Just due to the training model in ballet asking dancers to improv is something that a ballet dancer just cannot see, feel, nor understand unless gifted with natural improvisational talents. Forsythe's improvisational exercises work with geometry and moving lines, points, and shapes. The deconstruction of the ballet shape and step is truly very easy under Forsythe's structures and that is what I believe has allowed him to shift ballet into a new aesthetic. In addition this work has brought Forsythe into many new frontiers. Improvisation Technologies is a dance publication taught and used by many choreographers and is still studied today in depth with his current company of dancers. Synchronous Objects is also a pioneering way to look at dance by viewing the choreographic structure and movement through many different lenses that evaluate many aspects of laban movement analysis as well as similar ideas presented in Improvisation Technologies. It is really clear that Forsythe has made many changes to the ballet work but even his work has evolved from the beginning to now and Forsythe has stepped into other aspects of art making and found ways to involve movement within other forms such as site specific work, video work, multi disiplanary installations, and multiple artistic collaborations.

This is Firstext performed by the Frankfurt ballet.

Here you can see even further evolution of Forsythe's style of work. You can see the similarities in structure.

William Forsythe's World

During the career of William Forsythe a lot was happening in the world of modern dance but this was not the world that William Forsythe was living in. Forsythe's artistic developement stemmed from the ballet world and in Europe much was happening to allow different more contemporary ballet works to be produced. Martha Graham was working with George Balanchine. Jiři Kylián became the artistic director of Nederlands Dans Theatre. Pina Bausch was also across Europe making new and never before seen work. William Forsythe took great note to the changes in ballet repertoire and explosion of more contemporary dance. Post-structuralism was a new concept spreading across Europe during the 60's and 70's and William Forsythe is known for bring post-structuralism to ballet. As mentioned much of Forsythe's work stems from impovisation. Through tools and techniques created by Forsythe the approach to creating ballet choreography took a major shift. William Forsythe has redesigned the ballet aesthetic giving it movement that is exceptionally more mobile by breaking the stiff and static shapes of ballet as well as eliminating the ornamentation creating the more architectural look of contemporary ballet today.


-Sylvie Guillem in William Forsythe's "In the Middle Somewhat Elevated" - As you can tell from the music, costumes, and choreography William Forsythe has shifted the aesthetic of ballet into a more contemporary architectural form.

PROFESSIONAL LINEAGE/INFLUENCES

Early Training:
Joffrey Ballet and The American Ballet School - Maggie Black, Finis Jung, Jonathan Watts, Meredith Baylis, William Griffith, Leon Danelion, Mme. Periaslavic, Mme. Boskovitch, Nolan Dingman, Pat Wilde and Christa Long.

William Forsythe's dance training began at The Joffrey Ballet and The American Ballet School while there Forsythe took classes with Maggie Black, Finis Jung, Jonathan Watts, Meredith Baylis, William Griffith, Leon Danelion, Mme. Periaslavic, Mme. Boskovitch, Nolan Dingman, Pat Wilde and Christa Long. Forsythe joined Joffrey Ballet II and later got into Joffrey Ballet I for a brief amount of time before getting scooped up by John Cranko to join the Stuttgart Ballet. Cranko died the same year and Marcia Hayde took over the company encouraging Forsythe to choreograph a work for the company. While in Europe Forsythe developed and forged ties with Pina Bausch, and Jiř Kylian. It is very evident how both play into the work of William Forsythe.


"One Flat Thing reproduced" Pacific Northwest Ballet - This featurette displays footage and information displaying influences of Balanchine as well as what could also be influences of Pina Bausch.

Forsythe's style of movement has a fundamental basis in ballet but pushes the traditional norms by working with many different influences. The strongest influence is improvisation. Through research and studies of the work of Rudolph Von Laban William Forsythe developed a very insightful technique for choreography and performance.

William Forsythe has also explored many collaborations with performance artist Dana Caspersen, performance based electro-composer Joel Ryan, and video sculptor Peter Welz.

Information on Tight Roaring Circle by William Forsythe, Dana Caspersen, and Joel Ryan.
Tight Roaring Circle

Most recently William Forsythe has been working with Ohio State University in the 2009 final development of Synchonized Objects. Synchronized Objects is a highly technical computer choreographic analysis system. The system has several applications which break down many choreographic structures and laban paradigms. The work done on this project is very extensive and even discribes how the technology is being used and applied to other elements of design and organization such as architecture. Visit the synchronized objects link on the right to get a glimpse of the breakdown of William Forsythe's One Flat Thing reproduced.

WILLIAM FORSYTHE BIOGRAPHY

William Forsythe was born in New York in 1949. Forsythe began his dance training at the Joffrey Ballet School where he eventually worked his way up into Joffrey II and then the main company. Transferring to Europe, Forsythe joined the Stuttgart Ballet under the new direction of Marcia Hayde. Hayde encouraged Forsythe to choreograph for the company and he created some of his first major works along with making ties with big time European choreographers Pina Bausch and Jir Kylian. By 1980 Forsythe had decided to pursue an independent career choreographing. Forsythe created Gnge, Say Bye-Bye for Nederlands Dans Theater and was also invited to create a work he titled Dance/France for the Paris Opera Ballet and featured Sylvie Guillem at the start of her career. In 1984 Forsythe became the artistic director of the Frankfurt Ballet. At this time Forsythe's work continued to get recognition. The public considered his work provocative, intriguing, scandalizing, and major. Forsythe's ability to break down the classical ballet language and apply unheard of elements of disjointed time brought him to the forefront of dance. Forsythe continued to create new works for major ballet companies across the world including The Kirov Ballet, The New York City Ballet, The San Francisco Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, England’s Royal Ballet, and The Paris Opera Ballet. In 2004 after the end of the Frankfurt Ballet Forsythe sought out to create his own company where his work is now performed. In addition to his company Forsythe is also the co-director a teacher at Dance Apprentice Network aCross Europe (D.A.N.C.E.). Forsythe also has many achievements including multiple Bessie and Lawrence Oliviar Awards as well being an Honorary Fellow at the Laban Center for Movement and Dance in London holds a doctorate from Juilliard.