Ballet as an art form is traditionally an extremely structured and defined style of dance using a clear vocabulary of movement and strong sense of direction. The dancer is expected to get their body into exact positions creating lines and extensions of the body to precise degrees. Through metamorphosing this strict style by looking at the skills like turnout, the up right state of the body, relationships and the special diversity of the dance Forsythe is able to create a form of dance that draws a lot of attention.
Forsythe shows in his work Woundwork how he still has a strong link to his ballet roots. The dance has two female-male couples who explore winding pathways and material that binds the dance in space, but it shows references to some nineteenth century ballet choreographers like Balanchine, particularly the combative Agon (1957) and the Bugaku (1963). It also uses a strong traditional sense of the conventional ballet relationship between a women and a man.
Jiri Kylian very much like William Forsythe has stayed close to his ballet origins; he is the director of the Nederland’s Dans Theatre, which is known as a ballet company. This consists of dancers that have been classically trained this allows them to have all the elements that Kylian needs to create his works. The art form of ballet allows for the dancers to have the flexibility, stamina, and discipline for rehearsing and performing Kylians works in the way that he envisions.
Kylian's works have strong elements of the classical seen through the strength of the dancers bodies in extended lines, and the classicism of the movement running through their fingertips underlying his inventive contemporary style. In La Cathedrale Enguite there is a break away from the traditional use of a duet with women and men dancing with their own gender.
In a 1979 article written for the Dancing Times it shows how Kylian’s first impressions of his own choreography had him wanting to stay close to his origins of classical ballet much the same as Forsythe.
‘Although he quite rightly insists that his ballets are not abstract, nevertheless, like many American choreographers, he seems fascinated by movement as a thing in itself. And his ballets are always on the move. They are filled with strange swivels and lifts, exultant leaps, and reckless swoops across the floor. The rhapsodic approach to choreography made Sinfonietta a paean to the joy of life and the power of dance. But each of his ballets was a work of genuine interest.’(Jack Anderson, September 1979:156)
What especially intrigues me about both choreographers is how they themselves as the creators and critics and colleges always refer to their works as a ballet, and from watching them I feel more of a closer link to contemporary although I can see the strong link to classical dance.
Both artists work is created in a very similar way both breaking free from the conventions of ballet again. The methods that they use also have a huge effect on how the company is put together.
‘Unlike most classical dance companies there is no one ideal body type for the dancers… it means that the dance is highly influenced by the individual physical possibilities rather than, as is usual for ballet (and particularly for female dancers), by the physical capabilities and lines of the aesthetically dominant body. (Spier (Suicas, 'The poetry of disappearance', p. 33.)
This celebration of each dance in the company being individual means that it creates a worth within them that shows through on stage. It means that all the performances at the Frankfurt ballet company have different feelings and consumption by the performer and audience of dance on stage.
Jiri Kylian and William Forsythe share the same unique way of working with their companies, which is very different from what they may have experienced in their own early years of training. They have both scraped the idea of a hierarchy with the corps de ballet, coryphées, soloists and principles; every dancer is equal in the ranks. Both artists drop the control of the choreographer and become the editor of the piece.
This change in a company promotes for each individual to become part of the creative process, with both editors using the choreographic device of improvisation to create new and exciting material through their dancers.
Jiri Kylian’s choreography for the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Dutch constitution is a fine example of how and why he likes to work in this way. In an interview with Andrew van Esch the director of RTV West Jiri quite clearly explains his reasons behind his technique.
What sort of planning did you use for this work?
… You know I start the day not knowing how it will end. It is really a totally different working process. It’s more a non-narrative work. I cannot tell anything more about it. The dancers are wonderful; I use their creativity through improvisations. They really have fun working on this piece. Everybody has the feeling that something essential is happening, but at the same time it is frightening. But then again, it has always been like that whenever I started on a new piece. (Kylian 1998:www.NederlandsDansTheater.com)
Jiri Kylian uses the dancers to support his dance in a creative way for new material and revealing the chosen subject of his pieces. With his creation for the Dutch celebration he was asked to make the piece on ‘freedom’ and ‘human rights’. He speaks of how using his choreographic device within the company assists in portraying the meaning.
It was the first time that every dancer of NDT I is individually involved in the creative process. This time there are no group scenes. And if there are any group dances, then they are done in an individual way. The piece has to do with individual expression, with individual freedom. So in a strange sort of way it has become a tribute to individuality and human rights. (Kylian 1998:www.NederlandsDansTheater.com)
William Forsythe uses his company in the same way with the dancers not only being performers who merely dance the vocabulary given to them, but are involved within the creative process.
“In Gange – ein Stuck uber Ballett, 1993, for example, not all the choreography comes from me. I gave eight combinations of steps. The dancer developed their own variations. The dancing in Gange is from them.” (Spier www.Ballet-Frankfurt.com)
Both Jiri Kylians and William Forsythe’s companies work as an ensemble, and you can see they both speak of their method behind their work and regard for their company in a similar way, each member having their own strength to add.
I have always wanted to facilitate dancing that shows the bodies own experience itself, and this is an idea in opposition to my desire, as a choreographer, to organise movement. Trying to have each dancer articulate, choreographically, what he or she knows about dancing has made some co-existence possible between the two apparently irreconcilable elements. (Spier (R. Sulcas, 'in the news: the continuing evolution of Mr Forsythe', Dance Magazine, LXXI 1 (January 1997), p. 35.)
Working from classically trained dancers Forsythe and his audience could see the difference in their performances, with their beautiful technique but with the freedom of the company allowing them to feel dance and become an individual on stage.
Forsythe regards his Frankfurt dancers, Caspersen points out, as a ‘choreographic ensemble’. They bring to the work an openness of thinking, and a readiness to respond to manifold improvisatory tasks, which generate movement. Each individual work is shaped by differently structured searches that lead into different domains of knowledge. The underlying philosophy is that death and life are forces of creation. (Ann Nugent 2001: 33)
I have experienced this improvisation technique of choreography in a master class. Each individual in our class was able to choreograph a small piece of dance through improvisation about their personality. We then joined them into a duet and performed for twenty minutes entering and exiting when we felt was right, as a duet or solo, creating trios with other couples. Again we were improvising with space and time. I found it fascinating as with Forsythe and Kylian's work how such individual and personal styles could come together to create an interesting and complicated choreography. I was able to be a performer choreographer and viewer, which allowed me to become part of an ensemble making the performance really satisfying in so many ways.
William Forsythe contradicts his style being interested in Laban’s creation of notating work compared with Jiri Kylian who shows no link to defining his style in such a way. When in hospital Forsthye came across the works of Rudolf Laban, with his theories of space and notation of dance. Forsythe took idea and placed it into his own terms creating a CD Rom.
Improvisation Technologies focuses specifically on new ways of generating movement materials. It comprises a group of short explanations, delivered by Forsythe, of specific improvisational concepts; demonstrations of the devices being used to construct an improvised phrase; and a Forsythe solo, which embodies his improvisational principles. (Rubidge 1999: 46)
For me although it is a guide to the theories behind his dance for creating a piece of technology to notate it takes away part of the organic improvisational creative process that Forsythe and Kylian work in.
Watching Jiri Kylian’s La Cathedrale Enguite and Torso I can see the link between his style and William Forsythe’s. Both of them use clear extensions and angles of the body, it seems like they have taken their traditional ballet positions like an arabesque and ultimately turned them upside down.
The movements in Kylians la Cathedrale Enguite demand strength and flexibility of a dancer with long limbs winding around each of the performers bodies creating beautiful angle existing in different levels of the space. The bodies still carry the grace and fluidity of classical ballet from the feet to the fingertips but without the strict vocabulary and traditional positions. The couples are not the conventional partnership of women and a man but a mixture of both working with duets and strong connotations of sexual activity between two men through slow sensual movements.
In William Forsythe’s performance of Woundwork I andPas/parts – both 1999 and 1987,In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated, 1996 The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude, many of the characteristics of Jiri’s choreographies.
One of the most vivid characteristics of their performance is the force of energy running through the body, from foot to fingertips. Energy accumulates, noticeably in the connection between the foot and floor, and the charge running between flexed wrists and pointed feet. Where classical ballet frowns on hands that break the line of the arm, here the consciously bent wrist becomes part of dancerly ‘attitude’. Hands as a force of energy link virtuoso dance with ordinary movement so that the differences become ontologically inseparable. (Nugent 2001: 33)
In both Jiri Kylians work and Forsythe’s, Music, lighting and sound are extremely important elements.
William’s works previously mentioned use lighting with great importance in the performance.
Lighting is a crucial element of what we see – or do not see – in any Forsythe work, where extremes of darkness and light can test our patience. Driver explores the importance of lighting in a lengthy interview with Forsythe and his fellow American lighting designer, Jennifer Tipton. The conversation ranges widely, and sometimes playfully, across many areas including technical challenges and underlying beliefs. What emerges out of Forsythe and Tipton’s discussion is the narrowness of the division between lighting that obscures and lighting that illuminates will shake the assumptions most of us have about the role of lighting. (Nugent 2001: 33)
One of a kind, Jiri Kylian ‘One of a Kind is a rare work of art where there is a total unity between the lighting, the décor, the music and dance.’ (Patricia Boccadoro 1999: www.culturekiosque.com)
Bella Figura, Jiri Kylian, ‘So this choreographic structure of bodies, mind, sound and light in time and space is merely a metaphor of a game with extremely severe rules, which someone wrote in a long forgotten language.’ (Jiri Kylian: Background Ballet information: www.NederlandsDansTheater.com)
The choreographers both see a huge importance in collaborating all of the components of a performance in their dances with each having a strong link to the subject, and having a reason behind being employed.
Jiri Kylian uses a vast range of styles of music many being score that have already been written by renowned composers, Mozart and Stravinsky, having a great respect for their work and using movement as a way of conveying what the composer is trying to say through his music.
Symphony of Psalms, For Stravinsy’s work was never intended to be danced; it is a strong and important musical statement in which one of the main injunctions, to praise in dance, was not fulfilled. So, this choreography was made to merely complete the original concept of the text – to praise the lord with dance. But what is it that must be praised with this physical prayer? It is more a lament for an imperfect and disunited world in which the suffering and uncertainty of each individual are in ironic dialogue with Stravinsky’s religious score. (Jiri Kylian: Background Ballet information: www.NederlandsDansTheater.com)
Kylian usually considers music to be his primary source for choreography using mainly existing scores; he often challenges himself by collaborating with composers to create a new piece, which he still works closely with.
In an interview with Andrew Van Esch director of RTV-West Kylian explains,
Special Music has been composed for this new work. What influence have you had on this new composition?
My first starting point was music. I love vocal music because it’s like dance; it is the only human music that can be made without an instrument. You just need your body. I find it exciting to combine these elements… Music you have to trust completely, this is my daily bread, my “daily Brett Dean”. If I don’t have this trust I am totally lost. Of course I can choreograph on silence, but I cannot work with music I don’t believe in. (Kylian 1998:www.NederlandsDansTheater.com)
Forsythe also uses existing scores by distinguished composers,
In Frankfurt when they dance Vertiginous, they acknowledge the rhythmic exactitude of Shubert’s 9th Symphony in teasing witticisms. This leaves the audience in a happy state of confusion about whether the dancing should be seen as straightlaced or farcical. In Paris the fun is in the dancers’ electric speed and sly deviation from the expected. Because the music is familiar, you always know which direction Shubert will take, but you can never guess where the dance will take you next. (Nugent 2001: 35)
Forsythe and Kylian have a very close relationship to their musicians within the composing of the music and the performance, Forsythe works closely with a violinist in his work solo in which he performs himself. They have to have a close understanding of each other for the show much the same as Kylian has when describing his ideas to his composers.
The musician enjoys the curious relationship with the action, clashing (audibly) against the dancer, with the hungrily whining squeaks, or silences made obtrusive by the dancer’s squeaking feet or heavy breathing. Like the dancer, the violinist gives the impression of absorption in a personal journey that, occasionally, coincides with the dancing journey. (Nugent 1996: 23)
Using scores that can be recognised by the audience means that their choreography is often unexpected and contrasting to the music. This creates interesting collaborations between the music and movement, although it is contrasting is has a way of working and existing closely in time space and dynamics.
The subjects of both choreographers are very intense ones about the human nature but through my research Jiri Kylian seems to place much more importance on the subject of his work than Forsythe does. In Kylian’s pieces there is a huge emphasis on creating the meaning through dance so that the audience can understand it. His ideas can be conveyed by the dancers and also allow them as individuals to bring some of themselves to the piece.
‘Bella Figura’ is an Italian expression meaning something like ‘don’t let on that anything is wrong’ or ‘put on a brave face’. This is something that dancers are often confronted with – after all, the public must not notice an error has been made or that a dancer is hindered by a personal ailment. (Background Ballet information: www.NederlandsDansTheater.com)
Watching Torso a ballet about the exile of Jews who were being isolated in Vienna, I could see how Jiri was trying to convey the meaning through dance. The movements were creating a vision for the idea of legs not being rooted in their new place and arms reaching out but not being quite grown yet. The movements communicated the idea quite literally in parts with limbs reaching but hitting boundaries and limits feeling lost in their new location.
This area is where I see a difference in my research, studying review of both artists pieces I can see how in Kylian’s reviews there is a stronger emphasis made on Kylian's subject than on Forsythe’s where his form of dance seems more important.
Both artists use their work to create a reaction from their audiences. In Jiri Kylian’s Sarabande he incorporates the audience into his idea when choreographing.
Kylian has conceived Sarabande – like a number of his later works – as ‘a venture by means of choreography’. It is fundamentally related to No More Play, Falling Angels, and Sweet Dreams – as a black and white sketch to be completed and coloured in the mind of the observer. (Background Ballet information: www.NederlandsDansTheater.com)
Forsythe also gets the audience to question themselves becoming engaged in the dance.
As he pillages, he produces choreography that spills across the stage and out into the auditorium. It invites the audiences to experience something new, and to take this strange ‘other’ away with them and keep it tussling with it… it invites audiences used to seeing dancers defined by lighting to reconsider how theatre works. (Nugent 2001: 33)
From my research I can see that both William Forsythe and Jiri Kylian are extremely similar choreographers, perhaps striking from their backgrounds. They both have stayed true to their love of classical training but broken free to develop it into their own style, both use improvisation and collaborating all areas of music, lighting and sound. I think one of their major differences comes from the fact that they use personal experiences to create their works, and as different people with different companies this makes them very individual.
Bibliography
Anderson (1987), Choreography Observed. Iowa: University of Iowa.
Nugent, A.(2001) ‘Who dares to win’. Dance Theatre Journal,16(4).2001, p.32.
Nugent, A. (1996) ‘Confounding Expectations’. Dance Theatre Journal 13(1). 1996, p.22.
Rubidge, S. (1999) ‘William Forsythe’s Improvisation Technologies’. Dance Theatre Journal 15(3). 1999, p46.
Nugent, A. (1998) ‘Eyeing Forsythe’. Dance Theatre Journal 14(3). 1998, p26.
Kylian, J. (1987), Torso, L’enfant et les Sortiledge. (Video recording)
Boccadora, P.William Forsythe’s Recent Paris Saga(online). Available http://www.culturekiosque
Boccadora, P.One of a Kind (online). Available
Boccadora, P. False Start at Paris Opera (online). Available
Jiri Kylian Biography (online) Available www.vidishot.com/digidance/jirikylian
Jiri Kylian A Ballet Class(online) Available www.vidishot.com/digidance/jirikylian
(0nline) Available www.balletcompanies.com
(0nline) Available www.dance companies.com
Spier, S. (1993) Endeering and Composing Movement (online). Availabe www.BallettFrankfurt.com
Johnson, B Nothing Fails Like Success (online). Availabe
(online). Available
ROSIE DEANE
DANCE YEAR 2
Compare and Contrast two choreographers work and choreographic Process
