Who is William Forsythe?

Dancer, Choreographer, Artist, Inventor, and Innovator William Forsythe is a man of his time.  He is a unique artist, beautiful choreographer, and eager to travel to the very ends of possibilities in the dance world.  Armed with a ballet technique and a ballet base to his work along with a collection of today’s technologies he produces work and even reinvents how we create work. William Forsythe was born on December 30^th, 1949 in New York City, the place to discover modern dance at that time. As a child William was inspired by the great Fred Astaire which eventually led him to take part in musicals in high school. It wasn’t until he enrolled in Jacksonville University in Florida that he took his first classical ballet and modern classes. He then went on to dance at the Joffery Ballet on scholarship and the School of American Ballet. He joined the Joffrey Ballet briefly in 1971 but was then invited by John Cranko in 1974 to join the Stuttgart Ballet. There, he would create his first piece "Urlicht" in 1976 for the ballet’s showcase, and soon became the resident choreographer of the ensemble till 1981. After working with the Stuttgart Ballet he made a name for himself by becoming  a freelance choreographer and traveling all over in places like Munich, London, Berlin, Paris, New York, and San Francisco. He believed that dance was a series of folding and unfolding of the body and believed he could break choreography into his own system. With his unique spin of ballet and modern concepts he created works such as “Artifact,” “Impressing the Czar,” “Limbs Theorem,” “Alien Action,” and “Gange (A Piece about Ballet)” from which he became ballet director of the Frankfurt State Theatre from 1984 till 2004. Within this time he pioneered the first computer application Improvisation Technologies: A Tool for the Analytical Dance Eye, which dealt with his idea of finding a system in which choreography can be broken down to elements. In this time he also produced a short film entitled “Solo” and also produced many installation pieces.

Then, in 2004 he started his own Company, The Forsythe Company in Frankfurt am Main and produced pieces such as “Human Writes,” “Yes we can’t,” and ”One Flat Thing reproduced. His pieces have been shown in the Louvre Museum, Artangel in London, Creative Time in New York, and the Renaissance Society in Chicago.  In 2009 he launched his interactive web project in collaboration with the Ohio State University called Synchronous Objects for One Flat Thing which delves into the insight of the process and structure of choreography. He continues to teach in workshops and lectures all over and co-directs the Dance Apprentice Network Access Europe program (D.A.N.C.E.). He has won many awards including Honorary Fellowship from the Laban Centre, Honorary doctorate from Julliard School, Choreographer of the year (several times), the Nijinsky Award, the Laurence Oliver Award, and many Bessie’s. With William Forsythe’s unique approach to choreography and artistic ability to involve many genres of art, he has made his presence known in the dance world.