Ballet: William Forsythe

Quintett (1993), Trio (1996) and Enemy in the Figure (1989) First performed by the Ballet Frankfurt. How do you describe yourself? — I use classical ballet, the classical system, but not its language. What’s your approach? — It can start from anything, a word, a color, a sound, a space. Then, I create my material: a movement, a light, a sound with an object, an object with a movement, a sound with a light and a movement, sometimes all of those at once. I devise sequences, then I edit them like a film. Do you see a future for classical ballet? — The vocabulary is not, will never be, old: it is how it is used that dates. If its usage evolves, there is no reason why classical ballet should disappear.” – Interview with William Forsythe, June 1988. Some forty years ago, the American choreographer William Forsythe was appointed director of the Ballet Frankfurt and with his work Artifact (1984) achieved the first milestone in an artistic career that would go on to innovate the interpretation of and contemporary approach to dance, opening it up to the influence of other disciplines. The Ballet de l’Opéra national du Rhin commemorates this revolution by uniting for the first time three works by Forsythe created in the 1990s to music by Gavin Bryars, Ludwig van Beethoven and Thom Willems: the mesmerizing “Quintett” (1993), the virtuoso “Trio” (1996) which is making its entry into the company’s repertoire, and the hypnotic “Enemy in the Figure” (1989). An explosive program that celebrates the speed and might of the human body. Performance with recorded musics. Duration : 1h40 with the interval. Age limit : from 8 years.