William Forsythe

William Forsythe was born in New York City in 1949. After studying dance at Jacksonville University and the Joffrey Ballet School he came to the Stuttgarter Ballett as a dancer in 1973. This was where he developed his first choreography "Urlicht", a duet to the music of Gustav Mahler. Other works for the Stuttgarter Ballett were "Flore subsimplici" in 1978 and "Love Songs" in 1979. In 1983 Forsythe choreographed the piece "Gänge" with the company of the Ballett Frankfurt; he was appointed director of this Ballet in 1984 and he continues to direct it today. Important works from this time include: "Artifact" 1984, "Impressing the Czar" 1988, "Limb's Theorem" 1991, "The loss of small Detail" 1991, "Alie/naction" 1992, "Eidos:Telos" 1995, "Endless House" 1999, "Kammer/Kammer" 2000. Since October 1999 Forsythe has also been director of the TAT in the Bockenheimer Depot, the second venue of the Ballett Frankfurt.

With the season 2004/2005 the Ballet Frankfurt, after having separated from the Städtische Bühnen Frankfurt, is continued as The Forsythe Company under the direction of William Forsythe.

In 1994, Forsythe virtually reinvented the teaching of dance with his computer application “Improvisation Technologies: A Tool for the Analytical Dance Eye” (Hatje Cantz Publishing House), which is used worldwide by professional companies, dance conservatories, universities, postgraduate architecture programmes and secondary schools. Currently, Forsythe is developing an online interactive project expanding on the initiative begun with “Improvisation Technologies” by offering an interdisciplinary educational platform focussed on the inherent knowledge of choreo-graphic techniques and structure.


Artist Statement

Which issues inspire your artistic work?
Every work is unique and each work has a particular proposition. My big question is: will this work, and to what degree will it work? And I of course have to define what the term “work” means – how does it function, in what sense, what is it trying to accomplish – it could be any number of things. But each one is hypothetical in some way. There is no empirical proof that it is functioning. I think indeterminacy is important. So a big question is: what is the nature of indeterminacy, and of the indeterminacy in each production?

How would you describe the artistic language in which your productions are created?
I’m interested in the politics of responsibility.

Under which conditions and with what forms of collaboration are your productions created?
I look for situations that allow dancers to assume responsibility – they are responsible for aspects of the choreography just as I am responsible for the mode of deriving it. I make a proposal and I understand that this proposal can generate a certain kind of information just depending on what your references are.

William Forsythe