William Forsythe
William Forsythe was trained in Florida and went on to dance with the Joffrey Ballet and the Stuttgart Ballet where, in 1976, he was appointed resident choreographer. “His work is acknowledged for reorienting the practice of ballet from its identification with classical repertoire to a dynamic 21st-century art form.”(Theforsythecompany, 2009) In 2004 he founded The Forsythe Company. (Theforsythecompany, 2009)
William Forsythe’s Solo is the first piece in the short dance film, Evidentia, made by Sylvie Guillem. The whole film focuses on movement itself and how it is different from technique, but is a need to go beyond and explore on an emotional level what it is to move ”when you feel a need of something else, and you realise there is something beyond it” (Guilem, 2009)
Solo starts by the camera focusing only on the dancers feet and his toes wriggling, moving as though curious to what he feels, thus establishing to the audience from the very beginning the dancers connection and grounding. “His feet are fully articulated and spring lightly off the ground yet clearly establishes a relationship with the floor” (thiskineticitch, 2009)
Choreographic forms used within Solo include repetition, of one particular movement where the arm goes over the head in a frustrated and constricted fashion. This is a recurring motif throughout in all of the different sections of the work. It seemed to follow the pattern of ABA, with the first and third sections being frantic, fast movements and the middle section being a slow and deliberate movement pattern. It was interesting to note that the movements, though they were fast, were quite small and didn’t travel through the space very much.
The piece is abstract and does not tell a definitive story but really explored the ways an emotion changes movement. The dancer was displaying a feeling of frustration through “frenetic movements across a starkly lit stage” (thiskineticitch, 2009) in particular that motion of the arm over the
William Forsythe’s Solo is the first piece in the short dance film, Evidentia, made by Sylvie Guillem. The whole film focuses on movement itself and how it is different from technique, but is a need to go beyond and explore on an emotional level what it is to move ”when you feel a need of something else, and you realise there is something beyond it” (Guilem, 2009)
Solo starts by the camera focusing only on the dancers feet and his toes wriggling, moving as though curious to what he feels, thus establishing to the audience from the very beginning the dancers connection and grounding. “His feet are fully articulated and spring lightly off the ground yet clearly establishes a relationship with the floor” (thiskineticitch, 2009)
Choreographic forms used within Solo include repetition, of one particular movement where the arm goes over the head in a frustrated and constricted fashion. This is a recurring motif throughout in all of the different sections of the work. It seemed to follow the pattern of ABA, with the first and third sections being frantic, fast movements and the middle section being a slow and deliberate movement pattern. It was interesting to note that the movements, though they were fast, were quite small and didn’t travel through the space very much.
The piece is abstract and does not tell a definitive story but really explored the ways an emotion changes movement. The dancer was displaying a feeling of frustration through “frenetic movements across a starkly lit stage” (thiskineticitch, 2009) in particular that motion of the arm over the