Forsythe Company
At the beginning of 2005, William Forsythe’s new troupe, simply called The Forsythe Company, was formed after the city of Frankfurt decided to close the municipally funded Ballett Frankfurt, which Forsythe had headed for 20 years. An innovative public-private partnership among the German states of Hesse and Saxony, the cities of Frankfurt and Dresden and corporate sponsors provides a quarter of the new company’s funds.
Forsythe intends to dedicate himself increasingly to smaller formats in the border zone of related art forms. His latest effort was shown last October in Zurich, Switzerland, at the Schiffbau Theatre. Human Writes, a performance installation like its predecessor, You Made Me a Monster, renounces the traditional proscenium stage. The dancers and the audience share a common space like a museum gallery, which is in constant flux, not least because of the audience’s participation.
This interaction is linked with the theme of Human Writes, an allegory on the difficulties of putting human rights into practice. The title puns on the homophones “writes” and “rights.” Here, choreography is understood as social praxis—a concrete and often exhausting rehearsal of certain patterns and skills in order to create space for potential changes. Only through communal exertion, Forsythe proposes, can we attain the general human rights that the United Nations declared in 1948, but which remain precariously endangered in reality.
Sixty tables with thick, white sheets of paper attached to them are available to the participants in this experiment. At closer inspection, one can read letters or even entire phrases drawn in thin pencil. They are excerpts from articles on the right to free speech, the right to education and the right to unrestricted participation in the cultural life of a community. These declarations must be made more clearly visible. To achieve this, 35 dancers have thick graphite pencils and four hours at their disposal.
Yet rescuing letters, words and sentences always involves their simultaneous erasure. Each step forward is taken against the odds. The task here is to perform all activity indirectly and against the greatest possible resistance. For instance, a piece of graphite is tied in a rope stretched across a table by two participants. In rhythm, they try to hit the graphite against the surface in order to retrace the outlines of the letters written on the table. Elsewhere, a female dancer stands facing away from a table and attempts to write with her pencil behind her, guided by the directions of the audience. Bodies with pencils attached roll, slide and rub over paper. Everywhere there is hammering and thudding as in a coal mine. The dancers’ clothes and skin turn increasingly black. Many people in the audience willingly get their hands dirty.
Yet no one is irritated by this. All are caught up in the communal spirit of working together in good faith. Progress is made thanks to the indefatigable exertion of all participants. Human Writes proves that committed art need be neither simple nor naïve.
Gerald Siegmund is a dance critic and professor of theater studies at the University of Bern, Swizterland.
