NDT

NEDERLANDS DANS THEATER	WILLIAM FORSYTHE

Born in 1949 in New York, William Forsythe was interested early on by modern dance, rock and musical comedy. He subsequently studied ballet on scholarship at the Joffrey Ballet School and the School of American Ballet taking additional classes with Maggie Black, Finis Jung, Jonathan Watts, Meredith Baylis, William Griffith, Leon Danelion, Mme. Periaslavic, Mme. Boskovitch, Nolan Dingman, Pat Wilde and Christa Long. In 1970 , he joined the Joffrey Ballet II and later Joffrey 1, before being engaged in 1973 by John Cranko to join the Stuttgart Ballet, an important center of European dance. Marcia Hayde, who succeeded Cranko after the director's death in the same year, encouraged him to choreograph: he presented Ulricht in 1976, Traum des Galilei in 1978, Orpheus, Love Songs and Time Cycle in 1979. During this time, William Forsythe discovered Pina Bausch, forged links with Jiř Kylian, and returned regularly to New York, where he remained in touch with intellectual and marginal movements. In 1980, Forsythe left the Stuttgart Ballet to pursue an independent career, making works that intrigued and often scandalized audiences, like Gnge (in 1982, for the Nederlands Dans Theater), or Say Bye-Bye ( for the Nederlands Dans Theater). In 1983, at the invitation of Rudolf Nureyev, he choreographed - for the Paris Opera Ballet - France/Dance, which was presented at the Opra Comique and featured the young Sylvie Guillem. Since 1984, he has directed the Frankfurt Ballet, and his works have been considered major and provocative events. With Steptext, created in 1985 for Aterballetto, Reggio Emilia, his audacious style, with its breaks and accelerations, began to attract critical attention and an enthusiastic public. His distinctive deconstructing of the language of classical ballet took definitive shape in In the Middle Somewhat Elevated, created for the Paris Opera Ballet in 1987, and New Sleep (for the San Francisco Ballet, 1987). William Forsythe has also choreographed ballets for the New York City Ballet ( Behind the China Dogs-1988, Herman Schmerman (Part 1)- 1992), the Royal Ballet (Firstext-1995), the Nederlands Dans Theater (Say Bye-Bye-1980, Mental Model-1983, Marion, Marion (NDT III), Four Point Counter- 1995), the Joffrey Ballet ( Square Deal-1983), the National Ballet of Canada (the second detail-1981), and his works are danced by companies all over the world, including the Royal Swedish Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, Finnish National Ballet, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, Ballet de l`Opera national de Lyon, Ballet du Rhin, Batsheva dance Company, Boston Ballet, Cullberg Ballet, Pennsylvania, Ballet Florida, Carolina Ballet, American Repertory Ballet Company, Ballet du Capitole, Star Dancers Company - Tokyo, Ater Balletto - Reggio Emilia, Balletto di Toscana - Firenze, Ballet British Columbia - Vancouver, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens - Montreal, Ballet Zaragosa, Centre chorgraphique national Tours, Ballet Gulbenkian - Lissabon, Pacific Northwest Ballet - Seattle, National Ballet of Cuba, Bayerisches Staatsballett, Hamburg Ballet, Ballett der Deutschen Oper - Berlin, Ballett der Deutschen Staatsoper - Berlin, Ballett der Oper Dsseldorf, Nrnberger Ballett, Staatsoperballett - Viena, Ballet der Oper Graz, Ballett Basel, Ballet du Grand Thtre de Genve, the Dutch National Ballet, the National Dance Company of Spain and the Australian National Ballet. For his own company, he has choreographed Artifact (1984), LDC (1985), Isabelle's Dance (1986), Die Befragung des Robert Scott, Same Old Story (1987), Impressing the Czar, The Vile Parody of Address (1988), Slingerland, Limb's Theorem (1989), The Loss of Small Detail (1991), ALIE/N A(C)TION (1992), Quintet, As a Garden in this Setting (1993),Invisible Film, Of Any If And, Eidos: Telos (1995), Six Counter Points, Sleeper's Guts (1996), Hypothetical Stream (1997), Opus 31, small void (1998). Since autumn 1990, the Frankfurt Ballet has had an official "second residence" for two months a year at the Chtelet Theater in Paris.

Nederlands Dans Theater - Schedeldoekshaven 60 - 2511 EN - The Hague - Phone: +31 70 8800100