William Forsythe

William Forsythe (born December 30, 1949, New York, New York, U.S.) is an American choreographer who staged audaciously groundbreaking contemporary dance performances during his long association with the Frankfurt Ballet and later with his own troupe, the Forsythe Company. His body of work, which displayed both abstraction and forceful theatricality, deconstructed the classical ballet repertoire by incorporating the spoken word, experimental music, and elaborate art installations.

Although Forsythe performed in musicals when he was in high school, he did not begin formal dance training until he was a drama student at Jacksonville (Florida) University. He began studying at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York in 1969 and from 1971 to 1973 danced with Joffrey Ballet II, often appearing in the parent company’s productions. Forsythe moved to Germany in 1973 to dance with the Stuttgart Ballet, and in 1976 he choreographed his first piece, Urlicht. He became the Stuttgart’s resident choreographer in 1978 and that same year created his first piece for the company, Dream of Galilei. With his first full-length ballet, Orpheus (1979), he began to move beyond traditional classical ballet and present his own dynamic and unconventional vision. Forsythe left the company in 1980 to freelance and created works for companies that included the Munich State Opera Ballet, Netherlands Dance Theatre, the Frankfurt Ballet, and the Paris Opéra Ballet.

In 1984 Forsythe became director of the government-sponsored Frankfurt Ballet. He continued to develop his own concepts for his dances, using spoken word, video projections, and electronic sounds and devising an extreme physical vocabulary. In works that included In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated (1987) and Herman Schmerman (1992), he dazzled—and often confused—his audiences. Numerous companies worldwide included his works in their repertoires. During this time he was commissioned by architect Daniel Libeskind to create installations that featured architecture and performance. Forsythe dubbed these works “Choreographic Objects” and continued to produce them into the 21st century. In 2002 the Frankfurt government began to withdraw its support in order to cut costs and to favour a more conventional dance company. The public protested, but Forsythe decided to move on, and in 2004 the Frankfurt Ballet gave its last performance.

Forsythe’s new company, the Forsythe Company, was about half the size of the Frankfurt Ballet, but nearly all of its dancers were from that company. Forsythe continued to present his vision to a wide audience. With bases in Frankfurt and Dresden and supported by both state and private funding, the Forsythe Company made its debut in 2005 with the premiere of Forsythe’s Three Atmospheric Studies. A major retrospective of Forsythe’s work was presented at the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich in 2006, and in subsequent years his company toured across Europe, appearing in Paris, Zürich, and London. In 2009 London held a monthlong “Focus on Forsythe” celebration that included events across the city, a traveling multimedia installation, and the performance of Nowhere and Everywhere at the Same Time, an elaborate installation piece at Tate Modern in which dancers weaved through hundreds of suspended pendulums. In 2015 Forsythe stepped down as director of his troupe, and it was subsequently renamed the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company. However, he continued to be active with the company. He joined the faculty at the University of Southern California (USC) in 2015 and played an integral role in establishing the university’s Glorya Kaufman School of Dance. In 2021 he retired from the university.