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46-780: William Forsythe (born December 30, 1949) is an American dancer and choreographer formerly resident in Frankfurt am Main , Germany, and now based in Vermont. He is known for his work with the Ballet Frankfurt (1984–2004) and The Forsythe Company (2005–2015). Recognized for the integration of ballet and visual arts, which displayed both abstraction and forceful theatricality, his vision of choreography as an organizational practice has inspired him to produce numerous installations, films, and web-based knowledge creation, incorporating

92-544: A cadenza . As a training tool for dancers, he developed a CD-ROM entitled Improvisation Technologies (1995), which in turn resulted in the piece Self Meant to Govern , the first part of the evening-length work, Eidos: Telos (1995) which used monitors to provide dancers with verbal cues that spurred movement responses. Forsythe has produced and collaborated on numerous installation works, including White Bouncy Castle (1997, in collaboration with Dana Caspersen and Joel Ryan), City of Abstracts (2000), Nowhere and Everywhere at

138-431: A coherent whole.” Choreography consisting of ordinary motor activities, social dances, commonplace movements or gestures, or athletic movements may lack a sufficient amount of authorship to qualify for copyright protection. A recent lawsuit was brought by professional dancer and choreographer Kyle Hanagami, who sued Epic Games, alleging that the video game developer copied a portion of Hanagami’s copyrighted dance moves in

184-640: A more conventional dance company. The public protested, but Forsythe decided to move on, and in 2004 the Frankfurt Ballet gave its last performance. After the closure of Ballet Frankfurt in 2004, he founded the Forsythe Company (2005) with the support of the states of Saxony and Hesse, the cities of Dresden and Frankfurt am Main, and private sponsors and which he directed until 2015. The Forsythe Company, based in Dresden and Frankfurt am Main,

230-431: A political experiment locally." The movement style itself drew inspiration from the work of George Balanchine. Forsythe was drawn to the musicality, speed, and lightness of Balanchine 's work. Forsythe's emphasis on space is evident in his big, long, and exaggerated movements. Very fast footwork, and shaped hands—often with the lines broken at the wrists—are at the base of his vocabulary. The arms are intended to lead many of

276-401: Is a research platform with a focus on creating and researching online digital scores in collaboration with guest choreographers. Choreography (dance) Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which motion or form or both are specified. Choreography may also refer to the design itself. A choreographer

322-582: Is both postmodern and deconstructivist. Similar to the style of other postmodernists, Forsythe plays with the unexpected, moments of improvisation, and he emphasizes process within the creation of his works. The extreme positions involved in his ballets require a great deal of flexibility, and, in fact, most of his dancers possess that skill. Forsythe's early work in Stuttgart was created mostly for commission, and all of these early works were neoclassical. However, even in these early years, Forsythe states that he

368-558: Is one who creates choreographies by practising the art of choreography, a process known as choreographing . It most commonly refers to dance choreography . In dance, choreography. may also refer to the design itself, which is sometimes expressed by means of dance notation . Dance choreography is sometimes called dance composition . Aspects of dance choreography include the compositional use of organic unity , rhythmic or non-rhythmic articulation, theme and variation, and repetition. The choreographic process may employ improvisation for

414-840: Is the longest-running choreography competition in the world (started c.  1982 ), organised by the Ballett Gesellschaft Hannover e.V. It took place online during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, returning to the stage at the Theater am Aegi in 2022. Gregor Zöllig, head choreographer of dance at the Staatstheater Braunschweig was appointed artistic director of the competition in 2020. The main conditions of entry are that entrants must be under 40 years of age, and professionally trained. The competition has been run in collaboration with

460-667: The Kirov Ballet . The Mariinsky Ballet is the parent company of the Vaganova Ballet Academy , a leading international ballet school. The Mariinsky Ballet was founded in the 1740s, following the formation of the first Russian dance school in 1738. The Imperial Theatre School, as it was originally known, was established on 4 May 1738, at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg . It would become

506-899: The Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich in 2006, and in subsequent years, his company toured across Europe, appearing in Paris, Zürich, and London. In 2009 London held a monthlong "Focus on Forsythe" celebration that included events across the city, a traveling multimedia installation, and the performance of Nowhere and Everywhere at the Same Time , an elaborate installation piece at the Tate Modern , in which dancers weaved through hundreds of suspended pendulums. Forsythe's works developed during this time were performed exclusively by The Forsythe Company, while his earlier pieces are prominently featured in

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552-895: The Stuttgart Ballet in 1973. Encouraged by the director, Marcia Haydée , Forsythe began choreographing works for the company and in 1976 he choreographed his first piece, Urlicht . He became the Stuttgart's resident choreographer in 1976 and that same year created his first piece for the company, Dream of Galilei . During the next seven years he created original works for the Stuttgart Ensemble, and for ballet companies in Munich, The Hague, London, Basel, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Paris, New York, and San Francisco. In 1979, Forsythe choreographed and created his first full-length ballet called Orpheus . Forsythe left Stuttgart Ballet in 1980 to choreograph for other companies such as Munich State Opera Ballet , Nederlands Dans Theater ,

598-615: The Tanja Liedtke Foundation since her death in 2008, and from 2021 a new production prize has been awarded by the foundation, to complement the five other production awards. The 2021 and 2022 awards were presented by Marco Goecke , then director of ballet at the Staatstheater Hannover . There are a number of other international choreography competitions, mostly focused on modern dance. These include: The International Online Dance Competition (IODC)

644-1251: The 19th century, and romantic ballet choreographers included Carlo Blasis , August Bournonville , Jules Perrot and Marius Petipa . Modern dance brought a new, more naturalistic style of choreography, including by Russian choreographer Michel Fokine (1880-1942) and Isadora Duncan (1878-1927), and since then styles have varied between realistic representation and abstraction. Merce Cunningham , George Balanchine , and Sir Frederick Ashton were all influential choreographers of classical or abstract dance, but Balanchine and Ashton, along with Martha Graham , Leonide Massine , Jerome Robbins and others also created representational works. Isadora Duncan loved natural movement and improvisation . The work of Alvin Ailey (1931-1989), an African-American dancer, choreographer, and activist, spanned many styles of dance, including ballet, jazz , modern dance, and theatre. Dances are designed by applying one or both of these fundamental choreographic methods: Several underlying techniques are commonly used in choreography for two or more dancers: Movements may be characterized by dynamics, such as fast, slow, hard, soft, long, and short. Today,

690-569: The City of Paris. Forsythe collaborated with different educators and media specialists in order to create new ways to document dance. His first online program was a computer application titled Improvisation Technologies: A Tool for the Analytical Dance Eye , which he created in 1994. This application was used by professional companies, dance conservatories, universities, postgraduate architecture programs, and secondary schools throughout

736-760: The City of Paris. Forsythe is known to teach at universities and cultural institutions as a guest artist. He became one of the Dance Mentors for the Rolex Mentor and Protege Arts Initiative in 2002. Forsythe was also given honorary degrees such as his Doctorate from The Juilliard School in New York City and was given the title Honorary Fellow at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance in London. Awards received by Forsythe and his ensembles include

782-631: The Frankfurt Ballet, and the Paris Opera Ballet. In 1984 he was appointed director of the government-sponsored Ballet Frankfurt. Forsythe choreographed what is now looked at as his most famous ballet known worldwide. The ballet was titled In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated and was commissioned by Rudolf Nureyev starring Sylvie Guillem . In 2002, however, the Frankfurt government began to withdraw its support in order to cut costs and to favor

828-595: The Grand Prix de la SACD (2016) and the German theatre prize DER FAUST Lifetime Achievement Award (2020). Between 2015 and 2021, Forsythe was professor at the University of Southern California 's newly created Glorya Kaufman School of Dance and artistic advisor at the university's Choreographic Institute. Moreover, in 2015 The Forsythe Company changed its name to Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company and continued under

874-585: The Greek words "χορεία" (circular dance, see choreia ) and "γραφή" (writing). It first appeared in the American English dictionary in the 1950s, and "choreographer" was first used as a credit for George Balanchine in the Broadway show On Your Toes in 1936. Before this, stage credits and movie credits used phrases such as "ensembles staged by", "dances staged by", or simply "dances by" to denote

920-965: The New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Award (1988, 1998, 2004, 2007) and London's Laurence Olivier Award (1992, 1999, 2009). Forsythe has been conveyed the title of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (1999) by the government of France and has received the Hessian Cultural Prize (1995), the German Distinguished Service Cross (1997), the Wexner Prize (2002), the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale (2010), Samuel H Scripps / American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement (2012),

966-621: The Same Time No. 2 (2013) and Black Flags (2014). Installation works by Forsythe have been shown at the Whitney Biennial (New York, 1997), Louvre Museum (2006), Tate Modern (London, 2009), ), MoMA (New York 2010), Venice Biennale (2005, 2009, 2012, 2014), Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2020) and other locations. Forsythe has been commissioned to produce architectural and performance installations by architect-artist Daniel Libeskind , ARTANGEL (London), Creative Time (New York), and

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1012-821: The Same Time No. 2 (2013), Black Flags (2014) and Underall (2017). Installation works by Forsythe have been shown at the Whitney Biennial (New York, 1997), Louvre Museum (2006), Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich (2006), 21_21 Design Sight in Tokyo (2007), Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus (2009), Tate Modern (London, 2009), ), MoMA (New York 2010), Venice Biennale (2005, 2009, 2012, 2014), 20th Biennale of Sydney (2016), Museum Folkwang (2019), Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2020) and Kunsthaus Zürich (2021) and other locations. Forsythe has been commissioned to produce architectural and performance installations by architect-artist Daniel Libeskind , ARTANGEL (London), Creative Time (New York), and

1058-544: The ballerina upright and helping her to maintain her balance. While Forsythe deconstructs the classical technique of ballet, he additionally challenges social norms and the representation of these norms within art. For example, in his work Behind the China Dogs , Albert Evans dances with lean and fluid movements—qualities typically viewed as feminine—as Helene Alexopaulos moves fiercely, and with muscular movements—qualities typically viewed as "masculine". In all of his work,

1104-513: The ballet Swan Lake is perhaps his most famous work for the company. Originally choreographed by Julius Reisinger for the Bolshoi Theatre in 1877, Swan Lake was initially a critical and commercial failure. Petipa sought to revive the ballet with the blessing of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , but the composer died before the new ballet was created. Petipa consequently worked with his brother Modest Tchaikovsky , who significantly revised

1150-420: The basis of the traditional classical ballet repertoire, performed by ballet companies around the world, and often retaining much of Petipa's choreography. These ballets include the original productions of The Nutcracker , The Sleeping Beauty , Don Quixote , La Bayadère , and Raymonda ; and popular revivals of older ballets, including Coppélia , Giselle , and Le Corsaire . Petipa's revival of

1196-410: The choreographer. In Renaissance Italy , dance masters created movements for social dances which were taught, while staged ballets were created in a similar way. In 16th century France, French court dances were developed in an artistic pattern. In the 17th and 18th centuries, social dance became more separated from theatrical dance performances. During this time the word choreography was applied to

1242-587: The copyright claims after the district court concluded that his two-second, four-beat sequence of dance steps was not protectable under copyright law. Mariinsky Ballet Founded in the 18th century and originally known as the Imperial Russian Ballet , the Mariinsky Ballet is one of the world's leading ballet companies . Internationally in some quarters, the Mariinsky Ballet continues to be known by its former Soviet name

1288-404: The dancers are prompted to extend their limbs past their kinespheres, stretching the arms and legs away from the torso. From a structural point of view, he likes to play with the expectations of the audience. In the second act of Artifact (1984), for example, he raises and lowers the curtains in the middle of the dance, in order to change drastically the environment on stage, and willingly lights

1334-411: The dancers. Most of Forsythe's pieces use electronic scores composed by Thom Willems . Forsythe and Willems both believe that music and dance are independent from each other, and that, even though they coincide in dynamics and length, neither of the two is there to illustrate the other. Their main concern is the inner structure of their works, so they leave the emotional interpretation to the audience or

1380-569: The directorship of choreographer Jacopo Godani . Forsythe believes that classical ballet is a language with rules to follow. However, although he is trained with these rules, he is much more interested in bending and eventually breaking these guidelines. His style is based on classical ballet, using traditional positions, but developing them to the extreme. Many of his pieces are danced on pointe, but he has used all kind of footwear, including work-boots, socks, and slippers, in order to explore different choreographic results. Forsythe's choreographic style

1426-420: The listener. William Forsythe is also known for his work in combining the choreographic and visual arts. He has produced and collaborated on numerous installation works, which he refers to as Choreographic Objects, including White Bouncy Castle (1997, in collaboration with Dana Caspersen and Joel Ryan), City of Abstracts (2000), Scattered Crowd (2002), The Fact of Matter (2009), Nowhere and Everywhere at

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1472-731: The main rules for choreography are that it must impose some kind of order on the performance, within the three dimensions of space as well the fourth dimension of time and the capabilities of the human body. In the performing arts , choreography applies to human movement and form. In dance , choreography is also known as dance choreography or dance composition. Choreography is also used in a variety of other fields, including opera , cheerleading , theatre , marching band , synchronized swimming , cinematography , ice skating , gymnastics , fashion shows , show choir , cardistry , video game production, and animated art . The International Choreographic Competition Hannover, Hanover , Germany,

1518-510: The movements within this technique, unlike the more classical teachings of moving the arms and legs simultaneously. Weight change plays a major part in his work, which is especially evident in his partner-work. The dancers stretch and pull each other far from their center-lines, with the idea being that each will pull the other so far from center that a counterbalance is created between them. This element of counterbalance contrasts with more classical partnering techniques that mainly focus on keeping

1564-417: The popular game Fortnite. Hanagami published a YouTube video in 2017 featuring a dance he choreographed to the song "How Long" by Charlie Puth, and Hanagami claimed that Fortnight's "It's Complicated" "emote" copied a portion of his "How High" choreography. Hanagami's asserted claims for direct and contributory copyright infringement and unfair competition. Fortnite-maker Epic Games ultimately won dismissal of

1610-537: The predecessor of today's Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet . The school's founder director was the French ballet master and teacher Jean-Baptiste Landé and the purpose of creating the school was to train young dancers to form the first Russian ballet company. As the Imperial Russian Ballet, the company premiered numerous ballets by choreographer Marius Petipa . A number of his ballets now form

1656-615: The purpose of developing innovative movement ideas. In general, choreography is used to design dances that are intended to be performed as concert dance . The art of choreography involves the specification of human movement and form in terms of space, shape, time and energy, typically within an emotional or non-literal context. Movement language is taken from the dance techniques of ballet , contemporary dance , jazz dance , hip hop dance , folk dance , techno , K-pop , religious dance, pedestrian movement, or combinations of these. The word choreography literally means "dance-writing" from

1702-535: The repertoire of virtually every major ballet company in the world, including Mariinsky Ballet , New York City Ballet , San Francisco Ballet , National Ballet of Canada , Dresden Semperoper Ballet , England's Royal Ballet , and the Paris Opera Ballet . Throughout his career, Forsythe has experimented with a freer approach to choreography in which the dancers are allowed to make choices about order and timing comparable to those made by musicians playing

1748-545: The spoken word and experimental music. William Forsythe was born in New York in 1949, but only started dancing seriously in his later teenage years in college. He followed his grandfather musically as he was a violin prodigy. Forsythe played bassoon , violin, flute, and sang in choruses. He also choreographed for his high school's musicals. He began his training in Florida and later continued to dance with Joffrey Ballet . It

1794-721: The story and rewrote the libretto to the version now commonly performed. The production was choreographed by Petipa and his collaborator Lev Ivanov . Premiering at the Mariinsky Theatre in 1895, the Petipa/Ivanov/Tchaikovsky production of Swan Lake was a success. Following the Russian Revolution , the Soviet government decided that the ballet school and company were unwanted symbols of the tsarist regime and closed them both. The ballet company

1840-478: The world, and it was the inspiration for his later application Synchronous Objects . Synchronous Objects was launched in 2009, and "One Flat Thing" was reproduced on a digital online score developed by Ohio State University . The process was revealed, and people began to discover that the choreographic scores and the principles of choreography itself could be applied to other fields. After the success of Synchronous Objects came Forsythe's Motion Bank . Motion Bank

1886-631: The written record of dances, which later became known as dance notation , with the meaning of choreography shifting to its current use as the composition of a sequence of movements making up a dance performance. The ballet master or choreographer during this time became the "arranger of dance as a theatrical art", with one well-known master being of the late 18th century being Jean-Georges Noverre , with others following and developing techniques for specific types of dance, including Gasparo Angiolini , Jean Dauberval , Charles Didelot , and Salvatore Viganò . Ballet eventually developed its own vocabulary in

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1932-411: Was about half the size of the Frankfurt Ballet, but nearly all of its dancers were from that company. Forsythe continued to present his vision to a wide audience. With bases in Frankfurt and Dresden and supported by both state and private funding, the Forsythe Company made its debut in 2005 with the premiere of Forsythe's Three Atmospheric Studies . A major retrospective of Forsythe's work was presented at

1978-463: Was criticized for creating work that was too modern. As his career progressed Forsythe shifted the focus to the methods of his working, which included space and dynamics. Forsythe's choreographic style often includes political themes. He believes that the rehearsal space is inherently political because each individual lives their politics through their everyday behaviors. In an interview Forsythe said, "I wasn't about to go into politics, but I could perform

2024-531: Was introduced in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with a Grand Prix worth US$ 1,000 . Section 102(a)(4) of the Copyright Act provides protection in “choreographic works” that were created after January 1, 1978, and are fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Under copyright law, choreography is “the composition and arrangement of a related series of dance movements and patterns organized into

2070-686: Was the first to be re-established, becoming in 1920 known as the State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet, with the school re-opening later as the Leningrad State Choreographic School, both in their previous locations. After the assassination of prominent Soviet figure Sergey Kirov in 1934, the Ballet was renamed the Kirov Ballet in 1935, a name which is still sometimes incorrectly used. After

2116-618: Was while attending college at Jacksonville University , that Forsythe began his formal training as a dancer with Nolan Dingman and Christa Long . William Forsythe began studying at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York in 1969 and began his professional career as an apprentice with the Joffrey Ballet in 1971. From 1971 to 1973 danced with Joffrey Ballet II, often appearing in the parent company's productions. After this, he followed his then wife, Eileen Brady, joining

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