William Forsythe is recognized as one ofthe world’s foremost choreographers. Hiswork is acknowledged for reorienting thepractice of ballet from its identification withclassical repertoire to a dynamic 21st-century art form. Forsythes deep interest inthe fundamental principles of organisationhas led him to produce a wide range ofprojects including Installations, Films, andWeb based knowledge creation.
Raised in New York and principally trainedin Florida with Nolan Dingman and ChristaLong, Forsythe danced with the JoffreyBallet and later the Stuttgart Ballet, wherehe was appointed Resident Choreographerin 1976. Over the next seven years, hecreated new works for the Stuttgartensemble and ballet companies in Munich,The Hague, London, Basel, Berlin,Frankfurt am Main, Paris, New York, andSan Francisco. In 1984, he began a 20-year tenure as director of the BalletFrankfurt, where he created works such asArtifact (1984), Impressing the Czar (1988),Limb’s Theorem (1990), The Loss of Small Detail (1991, in collaboration with composer Thom Willems anddesigner Issey Miyake), Alien/a(c)tion (1992), Eidos: Telos (1995), Endless House (1999),Kammer/Kammer (2000), and Decreation (2003).
After the closure of the Ballet Frankfurt in 2004, Forsythe established a new, more independentensemble. The Forsythe Company, founded with the support of the states of Saxony and Hesse, the citiesof Dresden and Frankfurt am Main, and private sponsors, is based in Dresden and Frankfurt am Main andmaintains an extensive international touring schedule. Works produced by the new ensemble include ThreeAtmospheric Studies (2005), You made me a monster (2005), Human Writes (2005), Heterotopia (2006),The Defenders (2007), Yes we can’t (2008), and I Don’t Believe in Outer Space (2008). Forsythe’s mostrecent works are developed and performed exclusively by The Forsythe Company, while his earlier piecesare prominently featured in the repertoire of virtually every major ballet company in the world, including TheMariinsky Ballet, The New York City Ballet, The San Francisco Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada,England’s Royal Ballet, and The Paris Opera Ballet.
Awards received by Forsythe and his ensembles include the New York Dance and Performance “Bessie”Award (1988, 1998, 2004, 2007) and London’s Laurence Olivier Award (1992, 1999, 2009). Forsythe hasbeen conveyed the title of Commandeur des Arts et Lettres (1999) by the government of France and hasreceived the German Distinguished Service Cross (1997), the Wexner Prize (2002) and the Golden Lion forLivetime Achievement in Venice (2010).
Forsythe has been commissioned to produce architectural and performance installations by architect-artist Daniel Libeskind, Artangel (London), Creative Time (New York), and the City of Paris. His installationand film works have been presented in numerous museums and exhibitions, including the Whitney Biennial(New York), the Venice Biennale, the Louvre Museum, and 21_21 Design Sight in Tokyo. His performance,film, and installation works have been featured amongst others at the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich,the Migrosmuseum für Gegenwartskunst in Zurich, the Deichtorhallen Hamburg, The Museum of ModernArt New York and the Hayward Gallery in London.
In collaboration with media specialists and educators, Forsythe has developed new approaches to dancedocumentation, research, and education. His 1994 computer application Improvisation Technologies: ATool for the Analytical Dance Eye, developed with the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, is usedas a teaching tool by professional companies, dance conservatories, universities, postgraduatearchitecture programs, and secondary schools worldwide. 2009 marks the launch of Synchronous Objectsfor One Flat Thing, reproduced, a digital online score developed with The Ohio State University thatreveals the organizational principles of the choreography and demonstrates their possible application withinother disciplines.
As an educator, Forsythe is regularly invited to lecture and give workshops at universities and culturalinstitutions. In 2002, Forsythe was chosen as the founding Dance Mentor for The Rolex Mentor andProtégé Arts Initiative. He currently co-directs and teaches in the Dance Apprentice Network aCrossEurope (D.A.N.C.E.) program, an interdisciplinary professional insertion program based at Dresden’sPalucca Schule. Forsythe is an Honorary Fellow at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance in Londonand holds an honorary doctorate from the Juilliard School in New York.
