Kathryn Bennetts credits William Forsythe’s Artifact with changing her life. “I’ve heard a lot of people say that—the piece is just a monster in its importance,” she says during a break in rehearsals at Boston Ballet, where she and Noah Gelber are staging the full-length work for what will be its North American company premiere […]
American dancers have always liked to think of William Forsythe as one of our own. He was born in New York City! He got his start dancing with The Joffrey Ballet! No matter that he’s spent the vast majority of his career in Europe, where he created ground-breaking works like In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated, […]
Boston Ballet principal Misa Kuranaga in Forsythe’s The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude. Photo by Gene Schiavone, Courtesy Boston Ballet. For most dancers, performing (or even watching) William Forsythe’s electric, exaggerated vocabulary is an exhilarating experience. For dancers at Boston Ballet, it will soon be a new norm. Today, the company announced a five-year partnership with the master choreographer starting next […]
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to work in the studio with contemporary ballet mastermind William Forsythe, tonight is your chance to find out. (Or try to get a spot in the new University of Southern California’s Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, where he’ll be a professor starting this fall.) Today, Wednesday, March 11 at […]
The word “beautiful” does not cross your mind as you watch William Forsythe’s Sider—until the last five minutes. Odd, willful, fractured, yes. But his fascinating choices do not amount to any sort of harmony. So after those sometimes exasperating qualities, when you see lilting, feathery arm movements, you’re taken by surprise. You think, “Ahhh, that’s […]
The word “beautiful” does not ever cross your mind as you watch William Forsythe’s Sider—until the last five minutes. Odd, willful, fractured, exasperated, yes. But his fascinating choices do not amount to any sort of harmony. So after that difficulty lifts and you see a lilting, feathery arm movement, you’re taken by surprise. You think, […]
Not content with remaking ballet, the choreographer is pushing theatrical boundaries. William Forsythe made his first work (a pas de deux called Urlicht) in his living room in 1976. Since then—as a choreographer with the Stuttgart Ballet; then as head of the Frankfurt Ballet; now with his own company—he has fundamentally changed the way we […]
Making his second swing through the United States since forming his new troupe two years ago, William Forsythe succeeds at something incredibly rare in the contemporary dance world: He leaves us wanting more. Now based in both Frankfurt and Dresden, his 16 dancers in Three Atmospheric Studies grapple with the war that has destroyed America’s […]
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