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More thoughts on Forsythe

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All right, a few days later I have a few more thoughts. First, what interests me most about Quintett is its idea of an artwork’s shape. Some of the other pieces in the program seem more driven by movement exploration–let’s do this thing until we get sick of it–but Quintett has no such obvious framework. [...]

All right, a few days later I have a few more thoughts.

First, what interests me most about Quintett is its idea of an artwork’s shape. Some of the other pieces in the program seem more driven by movement exploration–let’s do this thing until we get sick of it–but Quintett has no such obvious framework. Instead, it works by suggestion, by intuition, the various moments of the piece attached to each other by the strange self-consciousness of the dancers. As an artwork, it’s not didactic, not statement-making, not “about” something, not attempting to cover all the aspects of something, not interested in thesis. A lot of works, in my opinion, run aground on the need to summarize, to pin down–Quintett is entirely free of this pull. And yet it feels motivated, whole. It’s an inspiration. How can we make something that is wildly various in style and mode and does not build to a conclusion, yet holds together on the inside?

My other thought is about ballet. Ballet is, importantly, a aesthetic system. Its rules describe a canon of beauty. To turn the leg out this way and point it, always with the toes extending the line of the leg and the heel coming back toward the ankle, is beautiful; to turn the leg in and sickle the foot is ugly. At least, that’s what ballet technique tells us. We’ve been talking a bit about the space-defining nature of ballet–its geometry–but we haven’t addressed its description of beauty. I see Forsythe as taking that standard of beauty and warping it this way and that way–not to be perverse, but because our imaginations have changed. We now see the purposely sickled foot as another form of beauty. We love complexity and difference where our ancestors longed for simplicity, universality. I’m oversimplifying, of course. But it’s worth remembering that ballet’s beauty arose in a time and place. What beauty fits this time and place?

I’m going to go back now and read through Dana’s articles (below on the “Walker Dance” blog). Has anyone read them yet? What do you think?

After Beauty

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I….. saw…..Forsythe…. I am still seeing. I am marked. Sometimes a thing is so beautiful it’s hard to look at. That’s how it was with “ Quintett”. The last piece on the program, I had so far “ kept up” with what was on view. The three works before intermission were astounding, graceful, hard-edged when [...]

I….. saw…..Forsythe….

I am still seeing. I am marked.

Sometimes a thing is so beautiful it’s hard to look at. That’s how it was with “ Quintett”. The last piece on the program, I had so far “ kept up” with what was on view. The three works before intermission were astounding, graceful, hard-edged when necessary, sometines audible, always beautiful.

And then there was “ Quintett”. Some works of art reach all the way through and touch my spine. Afterward I didn’t really want to talk, certainly not about that. How can words dare to aptly express, except to utter thanks?

Earlier this week Sally wrote a comment sharing with us her “ audition” for Forsythe. It was the underbelly of the experience. At the end she talked about her level of bravery at the time, and that it wasn’t enough.

I can safely say, and from deep experience alongside her, that Sally’s heart is one of the bravest I know. That she stood in the seats last night, with “ Quintett” just quietly gone, crying, was the bravest act I could imagine in that moment. Vulnerability and feeling deeply are fierce qualities. These shape us to be the artists that we are.

Sometimes Sally’s dancing is so beautiful it hurts. It’s different from what I saw last night, but similar in that she is so utterly herself. That’s the bottom line to me. Is the person dancing authentically them?

Each Forsythe dancer operates from this angle. They struck me foremost as humans, then dancers. That is the correct hierarchy as far as I’m concerned. There was no faade, just graceful inquiry and then an outpouring of sharing.

I am inspired, but it’s far away, not needing or wanting to take a specific shape just yet. I don’t need to run to Frankfurt to learn how to dance like this. I am so thankful to have seen, to still see, and to get to dance today myself.

Thoughts on the performance

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At intermission, a friend asked me what I thought. “At some level, it blows me away,” I said, “and at some level it leaves me cold.” The blowing away comes from the movement. Yes, it’s fast. And absurdly articulated, as if the air were thinner on stage. And wildly inventive, with every joint moving, every [...]

At intermission, a friend asked me what I thought. “At some level, it blows me away,” I said, “and at some level it leaves me cold.”

The blowing away comes from the movement. Yes, it’s fast. And absurdly articulated, as if the air were thinner on stage. And wildly inventive, with every joint moving, every possible twist explored. And marvelously complex, especially in the partnering. And various: movements are wobbly and interior one moment, ballet-straight and external the next. Almost always (the playful swinging of N. N. N. N. is an exception), the movement is muscular, impelled. Perhaps that’s what Dana meant by criticizing “decoration”: motion must come from muscle and momentum.

I also noticed Forsythe’s choreographic expertise. Entrances and exits are perfect, endings are good, and the stage pictures–the still shots the eye takes–are beautifully composed.

And, as I said earlier, this aesthetic appeals to me. Beauty, broken and disrupted, but never entirely gone; intellect moving, now sharply, now confusedly; a spareness about the stage and costumes (like Sally, I loved the look of the stage). I thought of driftwood, winter branches, calligraphy. I thought of the athleticism of an exegesis of a particularly thorny passage in Milton.

What left me cold? I kept losing my place, you could say. I wasn’t entirely engaged. I couldn’t tell why the pieces went on, other than to go on with the music or the formal exploration. I wanted more to hang on to.

But this was at intermission, before Quintett. I’m struggling to describe just what Quintett does; it’s a meta piece, dance about dance, but instead of closing the circle, Quintett opens it out. The dancers are aware of each other as dancers; they find reason to dance in formal exploration, yes, but also in the room, the music, in their moods, in their reactions to the characters they are all playing, characters that arise from and also feed their movements. Here, it’s not only motion that is muscular and impelled; it’s emotion as well. But then emotion and motion are joined here. I’m thinking of Casperson’s savage and joyful partnering, Jone San Martin’s desperate and jealous spasms.

I like the emotional environment Forsythe builds here: jealousy, wicked fun, voyeurism, dancers upstaging each other, the occasional pressure of unison, self-pity. It’s the dark side of performance, but it’s not campy; it feels real.

That’s it for now. I’d love to hear what someone else thought. I’m going to keep thinking about Quintett, though. I haven’t quite gotten down what I’d like to say about it.

On Beauty

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I will see the Forsythe Company tonight. A friend who saw the company last night called me afterward to prepare me for the beauty. Sometimes beauty, so intense and real and raw, pulls and even hurts a little. Sometimes, after watching a performance, I leave with a feeling of disquiet. I am happy and sad [...]

I will see the Forsythe Company tonight. A friend who saw the company last night called me afterward to prepare me for the beauty.

Sometimes beauty, so intense and real and raw, pulls and even hurts a little. Sometimes, after watching a performance, I leave with a feeling of disquiet. I am happy and sad at once. I am coiled in a ball and also set free.

I think maybe it comes down to being confronted with my own potential for beauty and the limitations I inadvertently place on it. This is why travel is good: to view myself in another context, up in the air, or flying down the highway. There is possibility in all that space and motion.

And so I prepare myself for tonight. I’m set with my tickets, with my date, with my notebook so I can jot down thoughts as needed. I have a hunch words will not suffice. I’ll be looking at definable movement, sure, but then there will be the dancers, magnificent with effort.

Space and motion. Emotion and spirit. All these sit at my table; tonight they’ll be in my purse. I remember that I contain these at every moment. Tonight I play the role of witness.

World Saxophone Quartet: A Drummer’s Antics

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I know many people listened in on the Walker’s sold-out performance of World Saxophone Quartet when it was broadcast live on KFAI last Saturday, and for those radio listeners I thought I would illustrate with words what the audience was giggling about during Lee Pearson’s drum solo: As Lee was just getting warmed up, he [...]

I know many people listened in on the Walker’s sold-out performance of World Saxophone Quartet when it was broadcast live on KFAI last Saturday, and for those radio listeners I thought I would illustrate with words what the audience was giggling about during Lee Pearson’s drum solo:

As Lee was just getting warmed up, he quickly peeled off his jacket while still playing and as he flung the sleeves behind him to free his hands, he revealed that he had never let go of his sticks (first round of giggles from the audience). Drumming, of course, never missed a beat.

More drumming, Lee proceeded to play one-handed, balancing a stick on his head (more giggles), dropped the stick behind his back, catching it and continuing to play from behind his back (clapping), then both hands behind his back, still playing (much happy appreciative cheering). Return to forward drumming.

Once he dropped a stick while having too much fun and moaned as he picked it off the floor, all very charming and crowd-pleasing (more giggles). The finale was when Lee played off the drums onto the floor and walking out from behind his kit, all while keeping his groove going. Tons of applause — it was awesome!

I hope I did it justice.

Happy Sounds

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I just came across The Books‘ sound sculpture under ‘knick knacks’ on their website and my day is now a little better after hearing the Spoon Box. I highly recommend it. Bliss.

I just came across The Books‘ sound sculpture under ‘knick knacks’ on their website and my day is now a little better after hearing the Spoon Box. I highly recommend it. Bliss.

What Lingers

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Dana Casperson is articulate in every way. Verbally, physically, and I can only guess, emotionally. The following are my thoughts about today’s master class and discussion later with James Sewell. Dana generates movement from her hips. Teeny-tiny, she is larger than life when she dances. She tells us to think of the body like a [...]

Dana Casperson is articulate in every way. Verbally, physically, and I can only guess, emotionally. The following are my thoughts about today’s master class and discussion later with James Sewell.

Dana generates movement from her hips. Teeny-tiny, she is larger than life when she dances. She tells us to think of the body like a snake. A snake cannot move without bringing its whole self along. As dancers we can think of our bodies in the same way. Any gesture contains the potential to become a full-body experience/expression. As classical ballet practicioners, we tend to isolate movements. They are always living, just often internally. Here, today, it’s like she’s telling us to show the work.

She tells us to think of approaching points on a three-dimensional grid. One can approach with any part of the body. Here’s the thing though, how can you get from point A to point B intelligently, without it being a non sequitur? What is the priority, the imperative, and what must be abandoned out of necessity?

“ Leave something behind”, she tells us. Move like a wave that simultaneously regenerates even as it breaks/arrives. I am reminded of a lotus flower, simultaneously blossoming and seeding, cause and effect existing simultaneously.

My brain fries. A part of me wants to physically experience this stuff, and I must admit, a part of me simply, complexly, wants to watch. I want to write, to experience this work from the inside of my own brain, grasping what precious little I can in two hours. It’ll be interesting to see what lingers.

I wrestle between my brain and my instincts, a hyper, encapsulated experience.

Ultimately dance is about the expression of the spirit.

It’s important to allow the head to fulfill the chain of events promised by the body.

I close my eyes and imagine myself in my grid. I sense my backspace and all the possibility. This gives me hope, in my dancing and in my life in general. I think this grid of possibility can apply to all we approach as humans. Adding focus, we follow the head. And for me, (I sense this with Dana too), I follow the heart and its sincere pursuit, to wherever it may quietly lead, often with surprising results.

What I know about Forsythe

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Not much. Unlike Penny (goodness, how lyrical!), my experience is all in words, and I feel the particularly invidious nature of words (their prickly jealousy of flesh) as I try to assemble my thoughts here. I’ve read reviews. Critics often fixate on movement quality (they say things like sharp, fierce, obsessive) and critical apparatus–the text [...]

Not much. Unlike Penny (goodness, how lyrical!), my experience is all in words, and I feel the particularly invidious nature of words (their prickly jealousy of flesh) as I try to assemble my thoughts here.

I’ve read reviews. Critics often fixate on movement quality (they say things like sharp, fierce, obsessive) and critical apparatus–the text in the programs or in the pieces. Writers often feel possessive about words, and when dancers/choreographers wander over into our territory, we occasionally spit at them–which is the impression I get from Forsythe reviews. The reviews scare me. From them, I expect to see cold hard theory. I expect pomposity. I expect pretentiousness.

But if Penny likes it, I suspect I might as well. Penny’s own work fits a lot of the descriptive words she’s using for Forsythe’s, and I adore Penny’s work. I’m also excited to see the foremost choreographer of avant-garde ballet, because I love ballet and I often love the avant-garde, and I often wish that more ballet work exposed the really fascinating structure, ethos, framework, whatever you’d like to call it, of ballet. Ballet is far more interesting than most avant-garde artists and viewers give it credit for, and I’ll raise a glass to any choreographer working to show that.

And about the words? Well, I’m trying to get used to a certain language that crops up in movement circles. It’s thorny, not pretty, sometimes absurd and sometimes hyperbolic. But you have to remember that this language is trying to describe something at language’s edge–the body and its life. That in itself is an interesting project.

My Nave Impressions of the Forsythe Method

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My first viewing of a piece by William Forsythe was when I was fifteen. I was in New York City with my mother and best friend, auditioning for the Joffrey Ballet School summer program. The Joffrey, still magnificent in 1986, before it crusted over and moved to Chicago, was performing at the State Theater at [...]

My first viewing of a piece by William Forsythe was when I was fifteen. I was in New York City with my mother and best friend, auditioning for the Joffrey Ballet School summer program. The Joffrey, still magnificent in 1986, before it crusted over and moved to Chicago, was performing at the State Theater at Lincoln Center. One of the works on the mixed-bill was “ Love Songs.” I was blown out of the water of my Dayton, Ohio existence. Now that I think about, I’m sure that that night, that viewing, affected my choreographic aesthetic, especially regarding male/female partnering. Those duets were fierce and borderline abusive. And so beautiful in their danger. I think it was the first time I had ever seen juxtaposition.

When I was twenty and living in NYC, San Francisco Ballet came to town and performed Forsythe’s “ In the middle, somewhat elevated”. I remember loving the costumes, the hats in particular, I guess you could say the general aesthetic. At the time, I did not know how to critique work, how to talk about what I was seeing. Now I know that I was absorbing, taking in, educating my eye. Then, I just knew that I think I liked it.

Cut to Minneapolis. A few years into my tenure with James Sewell Ballet, my friend Christian Burns spent a chunk of time in Germany with Ballett Frankfurt, William Forsythe’s home base at the time. Upon his return he told me all about it, over several long conversations. It was clear that Chris’ dancing life had been deeply affected. It remains clear that that affect has remained. His experience was deep and rich and had something to do with a dance phrase called “ tuna”.

Near that same time, during a summer visit back in NYC, my mom and I were at the Whitney Museum. I found myself in a darkened theater. A film of a dancer was playing. Somehow I knew it was Bill Forsythe. I was captivated. Again, I didn’t really know what I was seeing, how to relate his dance to my daily practice of the form. I love how dance can still surprise me.

Through James Sewell Ballet I got to know a long-time Forsythe dancer, Noah Gelber. An old friend of Sally’s, he visited one fall season and performed a solo on our show. The swinging light enchanted me, as did his magnificent dancing, his layers of socks, his sense of humor.

The summer of 1997 I was in Paris and saw Noah with the company. They danced a piece called “ Sleepers Guts”. My boyfriend’s father and my mother fell asleep. My boyfriend and I sat with eyes wide open on our little bench seats in the rafters of the theater, I forget which one. The piece had text, live video, and kick-ass dancing. It defied categorization.

Noah visited Minneapolis again several years later, after he’d left the company. He gently led us through a mini workshop/explanation of just a few of Forsythe’s improvisational methods. We barely scratched the surface.

So here I find myself at the heart of these residency activities. I look forward to getting confused, drudging up questions and my shit. Maybe I’ll have a break-through. Maybe I’ll break. However it goes down, I’m ready to be surprised.

–Penelope Freeh

Forsythe: Join the conversation

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Throughout the week, members of William Forsythe‘s company will be involved in community activities around the Twin Cities in preparation for their performances here March 15 and 16. Minneapolis artists are already talking about it here.

Throughout the week, members of William Forsythe‘s company will be involved in community activities around the Twin Cities in preparation for their performances here March 15 and 16. Minneapolis artists are already talking about it here.

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