Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T01:00:53.908Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Media-Bodies: Choreography as Intermedial Thinking Through in the Work of William Forsythe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2012

Sabine Huschka
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Since Ballet Frankfurt was reconstituted as the Forsythe Company in 2004, William Forsythe has increasingly explored formats of installation art practice. Works such as Human Writes (in collaboration with Kendall Thomas, 2005) and You made me a monster (2005) develop within an interactive and intermedial space and experiment with new ways to experience the production and perception of movement. “Performance installation” is the new term for this intertwined process of movement production and movement perception. The choreographic composition itself grows out of procedures of performative sensing by the dancers, which spreads to onlookers. This multiplex awareness of movement for which the dancer's body is the medium constitutes what I shall call the “media-body” as an essential moment of performance installation as choreographic event. Compared to earlier Forsythe installations—which he called “choreographic objects”—like White Bouncy Castle (1997), City of Abstracts (2000), or Scattered Crowd (2002), with their accessible spaces of movement (in White Bouncy Castle the spectator was a visitor moving about freely inside a white inflatable castle, and City of Abstracts featured choreographic projections of movement on large screens in open spaces) performance installations take place squarely in the theatrical context: in theater lobbies, exhibit halls, or accessible public performance spaces where dancers and the audience come together in a mutually shared yet operationally divided space that leads them into an interactive relationship.

Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , Summer 2010 , pp. 61 - 72
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Caspersen, Dana. 2004. “Der Körper denkt: Form, Sehen, Disziplin und Tanzen.” In Denken in Bewegung: Der Choreograf William Forsythe, edited by Siegmund, Gerald, 107–16. Berlin: Henschel.Google Scholar
Forsythe, William. 2000. Improvisation Technologies: A Tool for the Analytical Dance Eye [CD-ROM]. ZKM Karlsruhe, Deutsches Tanzarchiv Köln, SK Stiftung Kultur. Karlsruhe.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 2005. Die Heterotopien: Der utopische Körper: Zwei Radiovorträge. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Hüser, Gisela, and Grauer, Manfred. 2005. “Technologischer Wandel und Medienumbrüche.” In Ephemeres: Mediale Innovationen 1900/2000, edited by Schnell, Ralf and Stanitzek, Georg, 193–216. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huschka, Sabine. 2004. “Verlöschen als ästhetischer Fluchtpunkt.” In Denken in Bewegung: Der Choreograf William Forsythe, edited by Siegmund, Gerald, 95–106. Berlin: Henschel.Google Scholar
Huschka, Sabine. 2005. “Hinter den Spiegel sich wendend: Die vergängliche Ballettkunst von William Forsythe.” In Diskurse des Theatralen, edited by Fischer-Lichte, Erika, Warstat, Matthias, and Horn, Christian, 65–88. Basel: Francke.Google Scholar
Krämer, Sibylle. 2003. “Erfüllen Medien eine Konstitutionsleistung.” In Medienphilosophie. Beiträge zur Klärung eines Begriffs, edited by Münker, Stefan, Roesler, Alexander, and Sandbothe, Mike, 78–90. Frankfurt-am-Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag.Google Scholar
Lista, Marcella. 2006. “A Figure in Space: Interview with William Forsythe and Peter Welz by Marcella Lista.” In Corps étrangers: Danse, dessin, film [exhibit catalogue, Louvre Museum, Paris], 18–37. Lyon: Fage.Google Scholar
Primavesi, Patrick. 2007. “Was schreibt die Geste.” In Ballettanz 13 (1): 54–57.Google Scholar
Rebentisch, Juliane, 2003. Ästhetik der Installation. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Siegmund, Gerald. 2004. Denken in Bewegung: Der Choreograf William Forsythe. Berlin: Henschel.Google Scholar
Siegmund, Gerald. 2006. Abwesenheit: Eine performative Ästhetik des Tanzes: William Forsythe, Jerome Bel, Xavier Le Roy, Meg Stuart. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.Google Scholar
Snyder, Joel. 2002. “Sichtbarmachung und Sichtbarkeit.” In Ordnungen der Sichtbarkeit: Fotografie in Wissenschaft, Kunst und Technologie, edited by Geimer, Peter, 142–67. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Vogl, Joseph, and Engell, Lorenz. 1999. “Vorwort.” In Kursbuch Medienkultur. Die maβgeblichen Theorien von Brecht bis Baudrillard, edited by Pias, Claus, Vogl, Joseph, Engell, Lorenz, Fahle, Oliver, and Neitzel, Brita. Stuttgart: DVA.Google Scholar