Royal Ballet of Flanders- Artifact

Royal Ballet of Flanders

Belgium
William Forsythe

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"Artifact is a cyclone that leaves the spectator exhausted, shattered and full of admiration" - Le Figaro.

William Forsythe: Choreography
Johann Sebastian Bach,
Eva Crossman-Hecht: Music
Prue Lang, Nicholas Champion,
Agnès Noltenius: Text

In 1984 Forsyte, just appointed as artistic director of the Ballett Frankfurt, made his first full length choreography 'Artifact'. This four part ballet meant the start of a radical innovation in coded dance and it was the touchstone for a different kind of ballet. Forsythe disturbed the view and the perception of the viewer by means of irregular outbursts of noise and surreptitious implosions of light. He moved sections in such a way that the form and the significant connections between the separate elements led their own lives in the head of the viewer/spectator: as an ordinary tale, as a fantasy, as a stream of images, as a construction, as a critical interrogation or as a pure play of forms. He analysed and dismantled classic ballet to build it up again with a whole spectrum of varied material. All these characteristics are to be found in 'Artifact' : brilliant/sharp/incisive classic movements in real Balanchine style, alongside 'free', fluid movements from American post-modern dance mixed with techniques from contact improvisation.

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Video

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