In the first part of Endless House, a piece dating from 1999, the viewers are seated together in one gallery of the Frankfurt Opera House. On the clearly visible stage, one can see two dancers whose upper bodies are slowly approaching one another, until they finally touch and form a triangle. The second part of the evening takes place in an old tram depot. Partition walls divide the large hall. The dancers dance at various points throughout the hall or prepare for their entrances. To participate in all of the action, the viewers have to move through the hall, such that every individual ends up watching a different piece, depending on their position and the perspective available.
William Forsythe’s works demand a lot of their audience. Instead of placing a finished product in front of the viewers, the latter are challenged to actively engage with the happenings on stage. This already became evident in the title of Forsythe’s second work: Gänge. Ein Stück über Ballett doesn’t present a performance of the world-famous ballet Swan Lake. Instead, movements drawn from the Swan Lake choreography in combination with spoken texts spark a discussion about traditions in ballet. This discussion touches both on the characters in the piece as well as on the collaboration within the ensemble, the training, the rehearsals, physical challenges, personal points of view and much more.
Alas, Forsythe doesn’t only demand a lot from his audience. He also requires his dancers and dance experts to reflect on centuries of dance history. Forsythe’s movement sequences and choreographies result from an intense examination of classical ballet and feature a virtuoso body and stage language that has exerted a significant influence on many contemporary choreographers. This tension-filled linking of the tradition and modernity calls for dancers that possess a mastery of the classical movement repertoire who are at the same time capable of changing and renewing it through their (artistic) personalities and creativity.
To encourage this creativity in a systematic manner and also to make his working method accessible to a broader audience, in collaboration with Karlsruhe’s ZKM (Zentrum für Kunst und Medien) in the 1990s Forsythe developed his “improvisation technologies”, an interactive digital dance school in CD-ROM form. Forsythe has also driven the investigation of what dance is and how it can be seen or described in his initiative “Motion Bank”, a digital dance library. To realise this project, he assembled a team of dance creators, artists and computer experts, who together created a data bank that is accessible through the Internet. In the “Motion Bank”, one can watch many examples of contemporary choreographies as video, 3D animations or artistic broadcasts, or, in addition, read descriptions, commentary and interviews, and in this way attempt to gain more insight into the ideas behind the individual pieces.
Beyond the confines of the stage, Forsythe’s choreographic installations also often take place in museums or at art fairs. In these spaces, viewers can become active participants. For instance, in White Bouncy Castle visitors conquered a 40-metre-long bouncy castle – or moved through a room filled with oscillating pendulums, trying their best to touch them as little as possible, in his Nowhere and everywhere at the same time. The discussion about body, movement, dance and choreographies determined more or less by chance that Forsythe seeks to spark comes about very naturally through these works. Individual personal experience plays a special role here and can also bring the viewers to their physical limits, as was the case at the Venice Biennale in 2009, where 200 rings affixed to belts of differing lengths formed what from the outside appeared to be a simple parcours. However, those who dared to enter The Fact of Matter – as the installation was titled – were able to quickly sense how much strength, coordination and body control were actually necessary in order to merely cross the space.
Forsythe is currently working on a notation system for dance with which one can record and then read choreographies in a form akin to a musical score. These are to be made accessible in the “Motion Bank” as well.