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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13602360500285401

Dancing and drawing,choreography and architecture

Steven Spier Department of Architecture, University of

Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0NG, UK

Collaboration between choreographers and architects still usually takes the traditional formof the latter designing sets for the former, while research on the relationship between archi-tecture and dance is scant. One of the few examples of a choreographer working with then-current architectural concerns is William Forsythe and the Ballett Frankfurt in the late 1980s,particularly in Enemy in the Figure (1989) and Limb’s Theorem (1990). These pieces show aprofound understanding of and engagement with architectural issues then being addressedby Daniel Libeskind. Forsythe’s interest in Libeskind was not his ‘deconstruction’, as hasoften been asserted, but in his operations on drawing. Their coincidence of intellectual inter-ests and resulting friendship allows us to see clearly how concerns in architecture were alsoexplored through the medium of ballet. It is a reminder too of a period, postmodernism,when architecture led theoretical discussions.

Research on the relationship between architecture

and dance is not only scant but traditional. The lit-

erature from architecture tends to look at the use

of the space of the stage or at historical theories

of the body; that from dance tends to look at set

design or to make facile comparisons between

so-called deconstructivist architecture and some

contemporary dance. Collaboration between chor-

eographers and architects still usually takes the

traditional form of the latter designing sets for the

former. One of the few examples of a choreographer

working with then-current architectural concerns is

William Forsythe and the Ballett Frankfurt in the

late 1980s, particularly in Enemy in the Figure

(1989) and Limb’s Theorem (1990). These show a

profound understanding of and engagement with

architectural issues then being addressed by Daniel

Libeskind. Contrary to common understanding,

Forsythe did not actually collaborate with Libeskind

(though Forsythe did design a piece for Libeskind’s

Groningen Project in 1990), but their coincidence

of intellectual interests and resulting friendship

allows us to see clearly how concerns in architecture

were also explored in the medium of ballet. It is also

a reminder of a time when architecture led theoreti-

cal discussions in postmodernism (a term now often

substituted erroneously for historicism). A seminal

essay from that time, ‘Proliferation and Perfect Dis-

order: William Forsythe and the Architecture of Dis-

appearance’ by Patricia Baudoin and Heidi Gilpin,1

has often been reprinted and the phrase from the

title subsequently used by others. I will argue,

however, that Forsythe’s interest in Libeskind is not

in his ‘deconstruction’ but in his operations on

drawing, and that the consequences for ballet are

not so much to valorise moments of disappearing

but to make ballet’s highly evolved sense of counter-

point central.

Forsythe’s particular engagement in the late 1980s

with then-current intellectual and cultural concerns,

349

The Journalof ArchitectureVolume 10Number 4

# 2005 The Journal of Architecture 1360–2365 DOI: 10.1080/13602360500285401

Downloaded By: [Canadian Research Knowledge Network] At: 17:53 14 September 2010

and specifically with architectural ones, is most expli-

cit at the Reggio Emilia Festival Danza (1989),

devoted solely to the Ballett Frankfurt. Such an invi-

tation after just five years of Forsythe’s artistic direc-

torship, and the festival’s extent, demonstrate what

an important figure he had already become: the

company performed eight different pieces over six

nights in three venues, there was a four-volume

programme, a round table discussion in collaboration

with the University of Bologna and an installation of

set designs by Michael Simon.2 Forsythe had been a

freelance choreographer since 1980, was appointed

artistic director of the Ballett Frankfurt in 1984 and

was renowned by the late 1980s, not least for drag-

ging a reluctant ballet world into an engagement

with the intellectual concerns of the contemporary

world. Ballet is an art form that has been much

less affected by contemporary or even twentieth

century theoretical and cultural concerns than

most. Its ‘. . . inherent conservatism as a codified

technique for movement evokes a conservatism of

response, and allows it to remain . . . a marginal art

form that fulfils the function of light entertainment

rather than providing the kind of reflection and

stimulus that is expected of other theatrical or artis-

tic forms.’3 Forsythe’s explicit interest in such con-

cerns, ‘as part of a [then] current intellectual

preoccupation with the hierarchies of categories of

thought and value in western culture that has

become generally known under the all too embra-

cing label of deconstruction,’4 is evident in pro-

gramme notes, interviews and the productions

themselves. It has mostly been treated with

dismay, disdain or regarded as radical within the

ballet world.5

The programme contains the usual list of credits

and works to be performed but unusually also past

reviews, drawings, assorted quotations, interviews,

and essays by, or on, amongst others, Rudolf von

Laban, Libeskind, Paul Virilio, and ontology (Heideg-

ger, Husserl, Gadamer, Derrida) that ambitiously set

the intellectual context for the work. The pro-

gramme notes for Enemy in the Figure in volume

three are a reprint of the second half of Libeskind’s

essay ‘End Space’.6 Of particular relevance for this

paper is programme volume two, Il Disegno Che

Non Fa Il Ritratto. Danza, Architettura, Notazioni.

Its three essays deal explicitly with Forsythe’s

relationship to architecture, Libeskind in particular,

and notation. As we will see, one of Libeskind’s

central concerns was in fact notation or drawing. It

opens with quotations from Libeskind and from

Laban, who devised an influential method of move-

ment notation, Labanotation, and a theory of move-

ment in the 1920s. The first essay is the previously

cited ‘Proliferation and Perfect Disorder: William

Forsythe and the Architecture of Disappearance’,

which correctly asserts the influence of Laban and

the questioning of balletic form.

Enemy in the Figure (Fig. 1) opens with a dancer

lying on her back in a far corner of the stage, the

only part illuminated, with a second dancer crouched

beside her and moving the limbs of the first as if

arranging or experimenting with them. Beside them

lies a heavy rope and there is a squiggly wooden

screen placed diagonally stage left. A brooding,

ticking score is low and repetitive. Dancers period-

ically emerge from and disappear behind the

screen. The rope is periodically snappedandoperated

by dancers so that it is straight, squiggles or pulses

350

Dancing and drawing,choreography and

architectureSteven Spier


rhythmically. The dancers push a mobile 5000W

floodlight about the stage illuminating areas,

casting long shadows, making dancers who are

standing or performing in near darkness suddenly

visible; in short, defining space. It becomes

another player on the stage.7 There are periods of

calm. There are scenes of seeming chaos as

dancers run wildly around, sometimes caught in

the spotlight. There is a figure in a fringed black

costume whose movement is almost berserk. There

are levels of seeing and of disappearance and

multiple centres of activity.

Enemy in the Figure almost immediately became

the middle section of the three-part Limb’s

Theorem (although it has often been staged by

itself). It opens in such darkness that one isn’t sure

the curtain has come up. Only gradually do shapes

and sounds emerge out of a seemingly primordial

state; we begin to make out ghostly limbs twirling,

a line, movement on the side of the stage. The

light comes up slowly to reveal what we had strained

to see. The line is the edge of a huge silver plane

poised on a single corner. Below twirling arms we

can now see dancers’ lower bodies. An insistent

low hum becomes fuller and louder. The stage

goes dark and then light again, the line of the

plane becomes a point, then a line and a plane

again. A man in trousers and a white shirt sits

demurely on a stool at the plane’s lowest corner

occasionally rotating it, changing the position of

the shadows and the space the dancers are in. It

defines the space of the stage so dominantly that

the dancers seem diminutive, relegated to the

space it leaves over, as they perform solos, duets,

in groups. When two dancers wrest control of the

rectangle from him to turn it themselves he walks

off and all the dancers fall flat on the stage to end

part one. In the third act several of the stage

objects from the first two parts reappear as frag-

ments, and especially prominent is a segment of a

sphere, with its armature extending beyond it,

onto which are projected drawings on how to

draw perspectives. The number of dancers doubles

and there are so many things going on that it is

impossible to watch everything, nor even to see

everything from any point in the theatre. In spite

of this fragmentation, however, the piece presents

a coherent theatrical experience of movement, light-

ing and music, which is part of Forsythe’s genius and

his responsibility as artistic director of a large,

municipal ballet company.

There are obvious attractions for an architect in

the two works, namely the geometric forms, the

rope which becomes different kinds of lines, the

351


Figure 1. From Enemy

in the Figure, (1989),

#Dominik Mentzos;

used with permission.


space-defining lighting. Architects might even intuit

that Limb’s Theorem was explicitly informed by

architectural concerns. Gilpin did, as dramaturge,

assemble a 107-page reader for the dancers, ‘Texts

for the Preparation of “Limb’s Theorem”’ and for

‘General Work and Play’ that is a collection of

mostly post-modern architecture theory.8 But the

most architectural explorations in the two pieces

are actually Forsythe’s permutations and explora-

tions of the balletically trained body (Limb’s

Theorem was originally called The Doctor’s Body9),

and subsequently of ways of generating move-

ment.10 Forsythe defines what he does as organising

the body spatially: ‘Choreography is about organis-

ing bodies in space, or you’re organising bodies

with other bodies, or a body with other bodies in

an environment that is organised.’11 Classical

ballet connects coordinates in established ways,

which has allowed it to develop a high degree of

formal and technical complexity. By looking anew

at conventions of turnout, placement, verticality,

balance, and spatial orientation,12 one can draw

attention to these conventions and achieve startling

results. His explorations or challenges to ballet come

from the fundamentals of the medium itself, its own

structure and form: ‘I use ballet, because I use ballet

dancers, and I use the knowledge in their bodies.

I think ballet is a very, very good idea, which often

gets pooh-poohed . . . I see ballet as a point of depar-

ture—it’s a body of knowledge, not an ideology.’13

When Forsythe saw the End Space drawings in an

exhibition he had already created Enemy in the

Figure and immediately recognised in them what

he was trying to do with ballet (Fig. 2).14 (He sub-

sequently exhibited them in the foyer of the Ballett

Frankfurt’s theatre during early performances of

Limb’s Theorem.) The diagnosis of the problem

besetting their respective art forms is the same,

and goes much beyond the obvious fragmentation

of form. Libeskind declares in End Space that archi-

tecture has lost its authenticity and spirituality to the

mechanics of its production. To revitalise it he con-

centrates not on building, space or the ideological

context of architecture’s production but on the

drawing itself. He bemoans the reduction of archi-

tectural drawings: ‘they have become fixed and

silent accomplices in the overwhelming endeavour

of building and construction. In this way, their own

open and unknowable horizon has been reduced

. . . in considering them as mere technical adjuncts,

collaborating in the execution of a series made up

of self-evident steps, they have appeared as either

self-effacing materials or as pure formulations.’15

To get to that margin where ‘concepts and pre-

monitions overlap’,16 Libeskind submits drawing to

a process of ‘clarification’, ‘“purification” attempts,

through a series of successive steps, to realise the

elimination of intuitive content and numerical

relations, and lead to ever more encompassing

(spherical) possibilities of configuration.’17 The

return to drawing was then not uncommon, but

instead of figurative, expressive or poetic drawing

to revitalise architecture, such as those of many

architects at the time (eg, Michael Graves, John

Hejduk, Massimo Scolari), Libeskind’s are technical

and projective while still trying to get to wonder

and vitality: ‘If we can go beyond the material

carrier (sign) of the internal reality of a drawing,

the reduction of representation to a formal

system—seeming at first void and useless—begins

352




to appear as an extension of reality which is quite

natural.’18 That is what he calls his ‘enigmatic

reversal’.19

While Libeskind’s quest for an authentic, pre-

rational architecture is romantic, getting there

through interrogating its own highly codified

drawing technique is modern and scientific, and a

similar starting point to Forsythe’s interrogation of

the way ballet organises the human body. (This is

an interest of his that is of long standing: ‘Okay,

it’s good to know ballet, but the gist of the whole

piece [France/Dance, (1983)] is the organisation of

the human body as an art form.’20) It was abetted

by reading, while in hospital with a knee injury,

Laban’s Choreutics and extracting a simple but

powerful insight from the construction of the body

353


Figure 2. ‘Little

Universe’, from Daniel

Libeskind, End Space

(1980), #Daniel

Libeskind; used with

permission.


that is behind Laban’s notational system (Fig. 3).

(This influence of Laban is often cited.) Laban was

one of those curious early twentieth century

figures who was both romantic and modern,

alchemical and scientific, and Forsythe explores his

geometric construct but not his metaphysics. (He

also rejects his turn to expressionism.) Laban postu-

lates a stable, vertical axis for the body around the

centre of which is a three-dimensional kinesphere

marked by 27 points. As one moves the axis tilts

and rotates, the kinesphere moving with it (Fig. 4).

Forsythe recognised that this is well suited for inves-

tigations of ballet, which also assumes a central

point and connects coordinates in rigidly established

ways. Forsythe then poses some simple but highly

provocative questions of ballet’s construction of

the body, namely: ‘What if a movement does not

emanate from the body’s centre? What if there

were more than one centre? What if the source of

a movement were an entire line or plane, and not

simply a point? . . . Any point or line in the body or

in space can become the kinespheric centre of a

particular movement.’21 As Forsythe puts it: ‘What

I began to do was imagine a kind of serial movement

and, maintaining certain arm positions from ballet,

move through this model, orienting the body

354



Figure 3. Drawing by

Rudolf Laban from the

Rudolf Laban Archive,

National Resource

Centre for Dance,

#NRCD; used with

permission.

Figure 4. Drawing by

Rudolf Laban from the

Rudolf Laban Archive,

National Resource

Centre for Dance,

#NRCD; used with

permission.


towards the imaginary external points. It’s like ballet,

which also orients steps towards exterior points

(croise, efface, . . .) but equal importance is given to

all points, non-linear movements can be incorpor-

ated and different body parts can move towards

the points at varied rates in time.’22

The result of this simple yet clever insight was to

challenge the very assumptions of ballet, the

harmony, balance, and facade of effortlessness that

classical dance presents: ‘. . . the torso and arms

have lives of their own, contributing to the momen-

tum and direction of themovement instead of acces-

sorising the lower limbs, and the entire body is used

with a disregard for the vertical planes to which

classical technique adheres, pitching the dancer

into unknown extensions and astonishing muscular

articulations, changing the dynamics of partnering,

and introducing a notion of disequilibrium that clas-

sical ballet has traditionally spurned as anathema.’23

But ballet is still the basis for linking movement in

Forsythe’s choreography, for ‘the reflexes that

we’ve learned in classical ballet [to] maintain a kind

of residual coordination . . . This elasticity is derived

from the mechanics of torsion inherent in epaule-

ment’, which for Forsythe is the ‘crowning accom-

plishment of great ballet dancers.’24 It is also of

great help for another key device in linking move-

ments, namely counterpoint.25

Forsythe’s operations, as he calls them, on classical

ballet are a challenge to classicism but also a rejec-

tion of expressionism, the two poles the twentieth

century tiresomely bounced between. This central

problem is explored already in Forsythe’s Artifact

(1984), where the beauty, rigour, artifice and organ-

isational possibilities of classical ballet are set against

the primal beginnings of dance, explicitly rep-

resented by a woman in historical costume and an

Ur figure. It is the trap to be avoided between the

desiccation of classical ballet and the various twenti-

eth century attempts to escape it, which include

expressionism, free dance and Martha Graham’s

psychological musings. This position is shared by

Libeskind and the excerpt from End Space in the

Reggio Emilia programme begins by rejecting an

either/or approach of abandoning formal structures

in order to retrieve an intuitive understanding:

I am interested in the profound relation which

exists between the intuition of geometric struc-

ture as it manifests itself in a pre-objective

sphere of experience and the possibility of forma-

lisation which tries to overtake it in the objective

realm. In fact, these seemingly exclusive attitudes

polarise the movement of imagination and give an

impression of discontinuity, when in reality they

are different and reciprocal moments . . . We

cannot simply oppose the formal to the non-

formal without at the same time destroying the

mobility, variation and effectiveness incarnated

in the very nature of formalism.26

Libeskind writes further that drawing must seek ‘to

reflect . . . the inner life of geometrical order whose

nucleus is the conflict between the Voluntary and

the Involuntary.’27 Indeed, the End Space drawings,

while technical and cool, were drawn in a kind of

altered state, to the extent that Libeskind cannot

remember the method for making them.28

Another of Forsythe and Libeskind’s shared con-

cerns and approaches is their interest in mathe-

matics and specifically geometry. (Libeskind came to

study architecture from music and with a developed

355



interest in mathematics.) Forsythe says that ‘I enjoy

the geometric inscriptive qualities that [ballet] has.

So I just think of ballet as a geometric inscriptive

art form.’29 In Gilpin’s previously cited ‘Texts for

the Preparation of “Limb’s Theorem”’ there are

eight pages from a book on how to construct per-

spectives. Forsythe’s notebooks from the late

1980s and most of the 1990s are filled with

geometric drawings—intersecting geometric frag-

ments, projections and spatial layering, and notes

on mathematical and geometric processes (Fig. 5).30

Indeed the programme for the first season of

Limb’s Theorem at the Stadtische Buhnen Frankfurt

am Theatreplatz has replications of such kinds of

356



Figure 5. Sketch for

‘The Loss of Small

Detail’ (1991) from

Forsythe’s notebook

circa 1990, #William

Forsythe; used with

permission.


357


Figure 6. ‘imagining

lines’, from William

Forsythe: Improvisation

Technologies,

screenshots #ZKM

Karlsruhe and William

Forsythe; used with

permission.


drawings (though drawn with a knife) as well as

fragments from writings by Aldo Rossi (about

fragments) and Ludwig Wittgenstein.

This understanding of the body in space as a geo-

metric construct (‘I could see your hand as a gesture

. . . but I simply see it as a configuration and the best

way to describe that configuration for me is from a

mathematical point of view.’31) is made explicit in

Forsythe’s instructional CD-Rom ‘Improvisation Tech-

nologies. A Tool for the Analytic Dance Eye’ (2003,

1999, prototype 1997). Created to help him teach

his movement vocabulary and way of thinking to

dancers new to the company, some of the demon-

strations could fruitfully be used with architecture

students. For example, starting with two points,

drawing a line from them, moving that line

through space and extruding a plane from it

(Fig. 6). A ballet dancer is already trained to

imagine lines, planes, and vectors in order always

to know precisely where he or she is in three-

dimensional space.32

Forsythe’s interest in mathematics is not only

manifest through a geometric understanding of

ballet but more theoretically through limit. As with

that mathematical term, ballet can be understood

as an idealised construction which a dancer is

always approaching but can never reach:

Arabesque is a prescription in space, a projection

that dancers move towards. They imagine it and

try to embody it and occupy it although it is absol-

utely impossible. It is not supposed to be done it is

only supposed to be approached . . . It’s a bit like

arctic exploration where people move towards

nowhere assuming they are going to arrive

somewhere but that can’t be described. It is very

beautiful this kind of journey.’33

(Arctic exploration is a reference to his work, ‘die

Befragung des Robert Scott’, 1986, 1990.)

Getting dancers to understand the spatial and

formal knowledge of ballet through geometry

gives Forsythe a vocabulary by which to set them

any number of operations, as he calls them, on

ballet. Rather than tightly focused and formal geo-

metric exercises or steps he has created improvi-

sational processes. This was an especially strong

interest of his in the late 1980s and the 1990s. At

its most basic Forsythe would change details,

music or the order of sequences at the last minute.

But more fundamentally he experimented with

methods of improvisation that empower the

dancers to generate movement, though always

within prescribed parameters. This is not just

dancing around. For Limb’s Theorem there were

two main improvisational techniques: room writing,

which involved working directly with Libeskind’s

drawings, and DAT time. Then Frankfurt Ballett

dancer Nik Haffner describes being given one of

the End Space drawings and being asked to trans-

late it into movement, to go from two to three

dimensions: ‘The same drawing on a sheet of

paper is translated in a different and individual way

by each dancer. The timing of the movement is

determined by the manner and speed with which

I, let us say, “read” a drawing. It is a matter of

how much time it takes to go through certain

parts of the drawing.’34 This is an unravelling and

then translation of what Libeskind had done. For

while his drawings are dramatic representations of

space they are after all two-dimensional and static.

Furthermore, they are analytic in their technique

358




and while composed of recognisable architectural

elements they are only ambiguously represen-

tational. Like the dancer’s translation of that material

into movement, the drawings are both highly

personal and improvised, and operate within a

strict order, though one we cannot quite fathom.

The technique for interpreting Libeskind’s draw-

ings is named room writing, and again the process

resembles the ambiguity in the End Space drawings

between their universal and personal meanings.

‘The task during the piece [“Limb’s Theorem”] was

to translate the architectural information into move-

ments. This information is available as an offer to

every dancer when improvising, the dancer decides

what to select . . . In Limb’s Theorem it got as far

as us working from our memories with the archi-

tecture we know from home—be it our kitchen,

bedroom or living room, any room of which we

had a clear picture.’35 The dancers were also

given eleven pages of directives called U-lines from

which to generate movement phrases. These are

short phrases to interpret (eg, I’m not talking to

you, You meet yourself, Cheers you up, To spite

you), mathematical terms (eg, divides, delineates,

functions, planes), verbs and adjectives (eg,

deviate, follow, reject, implode, partial), and

playful or almost nonsensical phrases (eg, U invert

difference, U arc indivisibly, U project solids, U soli-

dify angles, U extend impulse). Such methods are

later explicated in ‘Improvisation Technologies’:

In ‘room writing’ you’re going to imagine a room,

its architecture and its contents, and you’re going

to analyse the architecture and the contents for its

geometric content. In other words, a doorknob is

a circle, for example, so I might describe this with

two points. So I have this imaginary doorknob in

front of me and with room writing, in one case,

we’re going to take this doorknob and knock it

off the door. Now the purpose of doing this is

simply to take me off place.’36

The dancer must be playful with the process:

You can establish a line with a gesture . . . I can

establish a line by making a crumbling gesture.

I can establish a line on the floor with little hops.

I can establish it by rubbing it into the floor . . . by

making little tiny dots, or between two dots . . . I

could probably smear it, slide it, tap it, swat it,

kick it. A line or a point is there in space and

how you establish it or how you manifest it is

really up to you. It is very important that this

part of the process remain extremely playful and

extremely imaginative. Don’t restrict yourself to

strict drawing of lines like you’re drawing with a

knife or a pen for that matter. You have to use

the surface of your body and your imagination

about how lines could form and how you could

manifest these things with your body . . .37

Another improvisational method that became used

often but was first used on stage with Limb’s

Theorem, is DAT time. ‘It is based on the fact that

the music to Limb’s Theorem provides very few

clues regarding the timing of the movement. For

this reason, a “time code” is displayed on monitors

for the chronological orientation of the dancers

throughout the entire piece . . . It can be used to

fix the time at which a certain action is to place,

for example, that I, as a dancer have to go over

there after 10 minutes, 6 seconds and carry out

such and such a task, or that the entire group has

to do this and that.’38 In Self Meant to Govern

359



(1994), for example, six clocks on the stage, each

with twelve letters representing a combination of

movements, instruct the dancers what combination

of movement they must perform and how long it

should take. The sequence of the combinations is

variable.

This invention and use of improvisational tech-

niques became a regular part of Forsythe’s choreo-

graphic process. Sometimes he continued to work

with drawings, such as those of Tiepolo for the

making of Hypothetical Stream (1996): ‘There are

all these human knots that Tiepolo had floating

about as sketches. I drew vectors from these

figures and said, these are hypothetical solutions

to these human knots. Are these possible? And so

Hypothetical Stream is simply people trying to

solve these problems, unravel these knots . . . [But]

we are departing from Tiepolo. The initial tableaus

he had drawn are irrelevant.’39 Many of Forsythe’s

systems for generating movement are re-generative,

making variations on themselves like algorithms (the

dictionary definition of which can be found in

Forsythe’s notebooks from the early 1990s). The

first piece that used recursive algorithms was Alien

Action (1992).40 For example, a dancer might be

asked to generate a movement alphabet by conjur-

ing alphabet figures—small, short, gestural move-

ments that are intuitively associated with a letter.41

These become the basis of a phrase and the physical

configurations or operations that make up that

phrase become what the dancer’s body remembers.

They become the building blocks for further choreo-

graphy, duos, group dances, or become altered to

inform the choices dancers make in a structured

improvisational setting.

Forsythe’s fellowship with Libeskind’s work devel-

oped into a friendship and they gave talks to each

other’s dancers or students, sometimes publicly,

sometimes together. They never actually worked

together except for Libeskind ‘s project to celebrate

Groningen’s 950th anniversary in December, 1990,

‘Marking the City Boundaries’.42 Libeskind was

appointed in the Spring of 1989 to draw up a

master plan for his proposal to mark the city’s

boundaries, which he called The Books of Gronin-

gen, with ‘emblems whose marks outline the spiri-

tual destiny of the City’. Nine signs for the city

were related to the letters of its old name, Cruo-

ninga. Each letter of that name was linked to a

muse and other themes, and assigned to a particular

site of the nine arranged clockwise around the city.

Forsythe was invited to design site ‘N’, with the

given characteristics being dance, mechanics,

3 pm, streets, red, flame, erato (Fig. 7).43 The

design is a long line of trees bent over so that they

gracefully arch over the canal, bending as if in a

permanent wind, or sheltering the canal, or even

like the arm en haut in ballet’s fourth position. The

design process was strikingly similar to what was

common in progressive architecture schools at the

time and included using the photocopier to abstract

drawings by changing their scale or making them

scaleless, and drawing with a knife and then

scrunching the paper from the sides to create

form.44

The relationship between Libeskind’s End Space

and Forsythe’s work of the late 1980s and early

1990s, especially Limb’s Theorem, is based on a

similar set of concerns and perceived crises. Both

artists worked within the highly formal constructions

360




within their respective disciplines and with highly

developed geometric sensibilities. The result in

both cases is very complex spatially. In Enemy in

the Figure and Limb’s Theorem the effect on move-

ment of posing such questions as how ballet puts

steps together and the formal structures behind

that construction, helps produce thrilling and

radical work that is still, though, recognisably bal-

letic even as it drags that art form close to its own

dissolution. Baudoin and Gilpin in their essay cited

earlier use the term disequilibrium but go farther

to state that Forsythe’s choreography is ‘the concen-

trated, almost meditative act of finding those points

where the balance is lost and the fall begins. This

state reveals what is always in the process of disap-

pearing; the dancing thereby highlights the conti-

nuous vanishing moments of movement.’45 But

Forsythe’s ‘deconstruction’ of ballet can be over-

stated, especially in the theoretically heady days of

the late 1980s and early 1990s. For the movement

is not primarily about disequilibrium, violence

versus beauty or discord over harmony. The most

interesting thing is what holds the movement

together, what happens between movements, and

that is based in classical ballet. Forsythe understands

his responsibility as choreographer to set the limits

for improvisation and to make the different

elements that the dancers generate cohere into a

performance, just as Libeskind’s drawings are coher-

ent though made up of fragments. Forsythe’s most

profound connection to Libeskind is not in the

formal vocabulary but in starting with geometry

and drawing, from which they subsequently devise

similar methods.

AcknowledgementsThe author gratefully acknowledges the support of a

CRF/RSE Visiting Research Fellowship which allowed

him to return to his work on dance. He was a guest

in the spring of 2003 of the dADI (Dipartimento di

Teorie e Pratiche delle Arti e del Disegno Industriale)

at the IUAV in Venice. The research for this article

also had the support in 2004 of an award under

the UK’s AHRB Small Grants in the Creative and

Performing Arts.

361


Figure 7. Sketch for

‘The Books of

Groningen’ (1990) from

Forsythe’s notebook

(‘number 33’) circa

1990, #William

Forsythe; used with

permission.


Notes and references1. This was later reprinted in PARALLAX (Frankfurt,

Stadtische Buhnen Frankfurt, Ballett Frankfurt,

November 1989). The publisher is William Forsythe

and the editors Patricia Baudoin and Heidi Gilpin. The

five articles in volume one include, in addition to

Baudoin and Gilpin’s, a selection from Libeskind’s

End Space, and an article about Libeskind’s drawings

by R.E. Somol. On the cover was a reproduction of

Libeskind’s Micromegas, ‘Vertical Horizon’, 1980. No

subsequent editions of PARALLAX were published.

Gilpin pursues her argument in ‘Aberrations of

Gravity’, in Any, vol. 1, No. 5 (March/April, 1994),

pp. 50–55; and, ‘Wo die Balance Schwindet

und das Unfertige Beginnt’, in Parkett, Nr. 45

(1995), pp. 12–17. The original article has most

recently been reprinted in G. Siegmund, ed., William

Forsythe. Denken in Bewegung (Berlin, Henschel

Verlag, 2004).

2. The complete list of pieces performed is: Impressing

the Czar (1988), Time Cycle (1979), Step-Text (1984),

Love Songs (1979), Artifact (1984), Behind the China

Dogs (1988), die Befragung des Robert Scott (1986),

and Enemy in the Figure (1989).

3. R. Sulcas, ‘William Forsythe: The Poetry of Disappear-

ance and the Great Tradition’, Dance Theatre Journal,

9, 1 (Summer 1991), p. 7.

4. Ibid., pp. 4–7, 32–33.

5. The reasons for this are no doubt complex but I find

the following compelling: ‘Dance has largely

divided itself into two spheres—the classical and the

modern, [and] the presence of two mainstream

forms has meant . . . that classical choreographers

and dancers have not even had to conceive of

integrating into their work the doubts that any

perpetuator of an inherited art must feel in

relation to the past and the present.’ R. Sulcas, ibid.,

pp. 4–7, 32–33.

6. Daniel Libeskind, End Space: An Exhibition at the

Architectural Association (London, The Architectural

Association, 1980).

7. ‘That light became theprimary player in thepiece . . . The

entire stage becomes a lighting instrument. . . . And

the wall, which divides in the middle of the stage,

basically reflects light or obscures light. The whole

stage is a big spotlight. This lighting is the architecture

of the piece and creates a projected architecture.

The piece does not exist without this light.’ William

Forsythe. Seeing your finger as a line, interview by

Christopher Cook for BBC Radio 3, broadcast 14

March, 1999; with Deborah Bull, William Forsythe,

Daniel Libeskind, Ann Nugent, Roslyn Sulcas. (The

Ballett Frankfurt had performed at Sadler’s Wells

Theatre, London, November, 1998.)

8. Heidi Gilpin, ed., Texts for the Preparation of “Limb’s

Theorem” and for General Work and Play (unpub-

lished, dated March 2, 1990). The complete contents

comprise selections from: Gregory Ulmer, ‘The Object

of Post-Criticism’, in Hal Foster, ed., The Anti-

Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture (Washington,

Bay Press, 1983); Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Post-

modern Condition: A Report on Knowledge; Jurgen

Habermas, ‘Modernity—An Incomplete Project’, in

The Anti-Aesthetic (op. cit.); Gaston Bachelard, The

Poetics of Space (New York, Orion Press, 1964);

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

(third edition, New York, Macmillan, 1958); Aldo

Rossi, ‘Fragments’; pages on how to construct per-

spectival drawings from a German book on drafting;

Patricia Baudoin and Heidi Gilpin, ‘Proliferation and

Perfect Disorder: William Forsythe and the Archi-

tecture of Disappearance’ in Parallax (Frankfurt,

Stadtische Buhnen Frankfurt, Ballett Frankfurt,

November, 1989); Barbara Johnson, ‘Nothing Fails

Like Success’ in Parallax (Frankfurt, Stadtische

Buhnen Frankfurt, Ballett Frankfurt, November,

362




1989); Elizabeth Dempster, ‘Women Writing the Body:

Let’s Watch a Little How She Dances’, in Grafts: Fem-

inist Cultural Criticism, ed., Susan Sheridan (London/

New York, Verso, 1988); Kent Bloomer and Charles

Moore, Body, Memory and Architecture (New

Haven/London, Yale University Press, 1977); Michel

Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Dis-

course on Language, trans. A.M. Sheridan Smith

(New York, Pantheon, 1972); Susan Sontag, ‘The Aes-

thetics of Silence’ and ‘Against Interpretation’ in A

Susan Sontag Reader (New York, Vintage Books,

1983); Bernard Tschumi, ‘De-, Dis-, Ex-’, in Remaking

History. Dia Art Foundation Discussions in Contempor-

ary Culture, no. 4, Barbara Kruger and Phil Mariani,

eds (Seattle, Bay Press, 1989); Craig Owens, ‘The

Discourse of Others: Feminists and Postmodernism’,

in The Anti-Aesthetic (op. cit.); and Frederic Jameson,

‘Postmodernism and Consumer Society’ in The

Anti-Aesthetic (op. cit.).

9. Kathryn Bennets, long-term ballet mistress with the

Ballett Frankfurt, telephone conversation with the

author, 24 July, 2003.

10. For a general discussion of this topic see my

article, ‘Engendering and Composing Movement:

William Forsythe and the Ballett Frankfurt’,

The Journal of Architecture, 3 (Summer, 1998),

pp. 135–146.

11. ‘A Conversation between Dana Caspersen, William

Forsythe and the architect Daniel Libeskind’ at the

Royal Geographical Society, London, 7 March, 1997.

Peter Cook substituted for an ill Libeskind. See also

M. Figgis (Director), ‘Just Dancing Around?: Bill For-

sythe’, Channel Four Version, Euphoria Films, 50’59”,

1996; broadcast 27 December, 1996, Channel Four,

19.30.

12. R. Sulcas, ‘William Forsythe: Channels for the Desire

to Dance’, Dance Magazine, LXIX, 1 (September,

1995), p. 52.

13. R. Sulcas, ‘Kinetic Isometries: William Forsythe on his

“continuous rethinking of the ways in which move-

ment can be engendered and composed”’, Dance

International (Summer, 1995), p. 9.

14. Interview with the author, 17 April, 2004, Frankfurt

am Main.

15. Daniel Libeskind, End Space, op. cit., p. 18.

16. Ibid., p. 24.

17. Ibid., p. 24.

18. Ibid., p. 20. (Also quoted by Forsythe at the interview

with the author, 17 April, 2004, Frankfurt am Main.)

19. Ibid., p. 26.

20. S. Driver and the editors of Ballet Review, ‘A Conver-

sation with William Forsythe’, Ballet Review, 18.1

(Spring, 1990), p. 96.

21. Patricia Baudoin and Heidi Gilpin, ‘Proliferation and

Perfect Disorder: William Forsythe and the Architecture

of Disappearance’, in Il Disegno che Non Fa il Ritratto:

Danza, Architettura, Notazioni, a cura di Marinella

Guatterini, Volume II (I Teatri di Reggio Emilia, 1989),

p. 74.

22. R. Sulcas, ‘Desire to Dance’, op. cit., p. 56.

23. Sulcas, Ibid., p. 56.

24. Kaiser, Paul, ‘Dance Geometry. William Forsythe in

Dialogue with Paul Kaiser.’ Performance Research, 2

(1999), p. 65.

25. Caspersen and Forsythe, interview with the author,

London, 1997; and, Caspersen, interview with the

author, Brussels, 1999.

26. Daniel Libeskind, End Space, op. cit., pp. 22–24. This

long quotation was picked out of End Space by For-

sythe and read aloud during our interview in Frankfurt

am Main, 17 April, 2004.

27. Ibid., p. 30. This was quoted to me by Forsythe

during our interview in Frankfurt am Main, 17 April,

2004 and earlier by him in my interview with Dana

Caspersen and William Forsythe, 25 March, 1997,

London.

363



28. Daniel Libeskind, interview with the author, 20 May,

2004, New York City.

29. William Forsythe. Seeing your finger as a line., op. cit.

30. The notebooks are not currently available to research-

ers. The author has had access to them during his

numerous visits to Frankfurt.


32. ‘A Conversation between Dana Caspersen, William

Forsythe and the architect Daniel Libeskind’, op. cit.


34. Nik Haffner, ‘Forsythe und die Medien’, Tanzdrama

Magazin, Koln, Nr. 511, Heft 2 (2000), pp. 30–35.

The English translations are taken from the Ballett

Frankfurt website.

35. Ibid.

36. ‘William Forsythe: Improvisation Technologies’, eds

ZKM Karlsruhe and German Dance Archive, Cologne,

CD-ROM, 1999/2003.

37. Ibid.

38. Nik Haffner, ‘Forsythe und die Medien’, op. cit., pp.

30–35.


40. Paul Kaiser, ‘Dance Geometry.’, op. cit., p. 68.

41. D. Caspersen, ‘It Starts From Any Point: Bill and the

Frankfurt Ballett’, in Choreography and Dance, vol. 5,

part 3 (2000), pp. 25–39.

42. ‘Marking the City Boundaries’, in Art & Design Profile

No 24, in Andreas Papadakis, ed., Art & Design,

Vol. 7, 1/2 (1992).

43. The other sites were designed by, respectively, art and

architectural historian Kurt Forster, economist Akira

Asada, dramatist Heiner Muller, visual artist Thom

Puckey, visual artist Leonhard Lapin, Libeskind,

architect John Hejduk, architect Funnar Daan, and

philosopher Paul Virilio.

44. As described by Forsythe in interview with the author,

17 April, 2004, Frankfurt am Main.

45. Patricia Baudoin and Heidi Gilpin, op. cit., p. 75.

SourcesValerie A. Briginshaw, Dance, Space and Subjectivity

(Basingstoke, New York City, Palgrave, 2001).

William Forsythe, interview with the author, Frankfurt am

Main, 17 April, 2004.

William Forsythe: Improvisation Technologies, eds, ZKM

Karlsruhe and German Dance Archive Cologne: CD-

ROM, 1999/2003.

Paul Kaiser, ‘Dance Geometry. William Forsythe in Dialogue

with Paul Kaiser’, Performance Research, 2 (1999),

pp. 64–71.

Daniel Libeskind, End Space: An Exhibition at the Architec-

tural Association (London, The Architectural Associ-

ation, 1980).

Daniel Libeskind, interview with the author, New York City,

May, 2004.

Thomas McManus, ‘Enemy von innen’, in Gerald Sieg-

mund, ed., Denken in Bewegung (Berlin, Henschel

Verlag, 2004).

Johannes Odenthal, ‘Danced Space. Conflicts of

Modern Dance Theatre’, Daidalos (15 June, 1992),

pp. 38–47.

William Forsythe: Reggio Emilia Festival Danza, in four

volumes (Reggio Emilia, I Teatri di Reggio Emilia,

23–28 September, 1989). Volume I. l Designo che

Non Fa il Ritratto: Danza, Architettura, Notazioni, a

cura di Marinella Guatterini. Volume II. Itinerario, a

cura di Marinella Guatterini. Volume III. Sulle Proprie

Tracce, a cura di Marinella Guatterini; Positions di

Patricia Baudoin e Heidi Gilpin. Volume IV. I Teatri

di Reggio Emilia, 1989. (All English translations are

from the programmes themselves.)

Gilpin, Heidi, ed., ‘Texts for the Preparation of Limb’s

Theorem and for General Work and Play’: dated 02

March, 1990; unpublished.

William Forsythe, Seeing your finger as a line, interview by

Christopher Cook for BBC Radio 3, broadcast 14

March, 1999.

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choreo and drawing steven spier

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