William Forsythe A quiet evening of dance

About

One of the leading choreographers of his generation, he imagined “A Quiet Evening of Dance” as a chamber music piece, combining recycled materials and a recently created one. Over the course of two acts, we dive into the fundamentals of ballet, its aesthetics and its codes, in a journey through the history of dance. Forsythe’s long career was largely spent performing with the Joffrey Ballet and the Stuttgart Opera, and the continuity of classical vocabulary in present-day works is exactly what makes his language so challenging. “To make people see ballet better”, Forsythe presents his usual performers with an unembellished recital, conveying what movement comprises, form modern to urban, from baroque to contemporary. It all starts with the triptych “Prologue-Catalogue Epilogue”, and with bodies stretching their arms in the air as singing birds. The arrival of B-boy Rauf “Rubber-Legz” Yasit and the obviousness of movement as mechanical ability render the physical effort more complex. The first act comes to an end with “DUO2015”, which is originally a women-only duet from 1996 that was re-choreographed in 2015, and that in this case is performed by two dancers who mock and stumble over one another’s gestures. In the second act, Rameau’s Baroque music sets the tone for a choreography that puts together a narrative, and at the same time cleans and reshapes the origin of ballet. “Seventeen/ Twenty-One” dates back to the court at Versailles with the Sun King dance, the five positions, plié and pirouette in an updated movement. “A Quiet Evening of Dance” brings to Rivoli Forsythe, the superstar, his exemplary dancers and the history of dance they carry in their bodies.