WILLIAM FORSYTHE / PROGRAMME / Palais Garnier / Juillet 2016

Description

"I like to make what happens on stage uncertain and develop what I call a poetics of 'disappearance'."
- William Forsythe

A regular at the Paris Opera for nearly thirty years, William Forsythe returns to the Palais Garnier stage with three ballets. Created in 1996, Approximate Sonata is a suite of pas de deux, a dazzling and virtuosic rereading of the classical repertoire in a bare stage design, sculpted by clever lighting effects conceived by the choreographer himself. For this revival, Thom Willems proposes a new version of the music composed for the creation. In 1995, William Forsythe also created Of Any If And for the Frankfurt Ballet to Thom Willems' music, which is now part of the Opera Ballet's repertoire. In his quest for permanent innovation, the choreographer has conceived a duet of extreme technical demands, this time introducing the word. Enigmatic words spoken by two dancers from the back of the stage, words written intermittently on the black background of different screens.

In each of his pieces, a mastery of space and a deep knowledge of the most academic neoclassical dance are imposed, the better to deconstruct and surpass it, in a resolutely modern vision. It is with the same high standards and intact energy that William Forsythe presents his latest creation for the dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet, but with a new musical collaborator: the British composer James Blake.