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.