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United States William Forsythe is an American dancer and choreographer recognized for reorienting ballet from its classical origins to a dynamic, 21st-century art form.
Boston Ballet announced on Wednesday that it has entered into a five-year partnership with the choreographer William Forsythe.
More recently Forsythe has created original works for the Paris Opera Ballet, English National Ballet, Boston Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, La Scala Ballet.
More recently Forsythe has created original works for the Paris Opera Ballet, English National Ballet, Boston Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, La Scala Ballet.
More recently Forsythe has created original works for the Paris Opera Ballet, English National Ballet, Boston Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, La Scala Ballet.
More recently Forsythe has created original works for the Paris Opera Ballet, English National Ballet, Boston Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, La Scala Ballet.
William Forsythe is a radical innovator in choreography and dance. For more than four decades, he has redefined the syntax and praxis of his field.
Forsythe, who established his eponymous company after the closure of the Ballet Frankfurt in 2004, is widely known for his collaborations with.
The M.F.A. program is partnering with renowned choreographer William Forsythe's The Forsythe Company and the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts.
The M.F.A. program is partnering with renowned choreographer William Forsythe's The Forsythe Company and the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts.
The collaboration with Kendall Thomas and William Forsythe was made possible by the American Academy in Berlin.
William Forsythe was born in New York City on December 30, 1949. He began his formal dance training in his later teenage years while attending Jacksonville University, with Nolan Dingman and Christa Long. His musical background included playing bassoon, violin, and flute, and singing in choruses, later leading him to choreograph for high school musicals. Forsythe furthered his training 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, he danced with Joffrey Ballet II, often performing in the parent company’s productions.
In 1973, Forsythe joined the Stuttgart Ballet and, encouraged by director Marcia Haydée, began choreographing. He created his first piece, _Urlicht_, in 1976, and was appointed the Stuttgart’s resident choreographer the same year, creating _Dream of Galilei_. Over the next seven years, he produced works for the Stuttgart Ensemble and other international ballet companies, choreographing his first full-length ballet, _Orpheus_, in 1979. In 1980, Forsythe left Stuttgart Ballet to choreograph for companies including Munich State Opera Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater, the Frankfurt Ballet, and the Paris Opera Ballet. A significant milestone was his appointment as director of the government-sponsored Ballet Frankfurt in 1984, where he spent 20 years. During this tenure, he choreographed his renowned ballet _In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated_, commissioned by Rudolf Nureyev and starring Sylvie Guillem. After Ballet Frankfurt’s closure in 2004, he founded The Forsythe Company in 2005, based in Dresden and Frankfurt am Main, which he directed until 2015. His earlier works remain prominent in the repertoire of major ballet companies globally.
Beyond traditional ballet, Forsythe has made significant contributions to installations, films, and web-based knowledge creation, integrating ballet with visual arts. His “Choreographic Objects” have been exhibited in prominent venues like the Whitney Biennial (1997), Louvre Museum (2006), Tate Modern (2009), MoMA (2010), and the Venice Biennale (2005, 2009, 2012, 2014). He developed _Improvisation Technologies_ (1994), a computer application used worldwide for dance education, and later _Synchronous Objects_ (2009) and _Motion Bank_. From 2015 to 2021, he served as a professor at the University of Southern California’s Glorya Kaufman School of Dance and artistic advisor at its Choreographic Institute. His accolades include multiple “Bessie” Awards, Laurence Olivier Awards, the German Distinguished Service Cross (1997), and the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale (2010) for Lifetime Achievement.
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