Changing the Conversation: William Forsythe, Kinetic Energy and Intense Emotion

Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

'I don't care so much about choreography, I care about dancing.'
William Forsythe

I recently watched a splendid double bill of William Forsythe’s dance works performed by the English National Ballet (at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London).

The American choreographer has taken the vocabulary of traditional classical ballet steps, cut it up and reconfigured it around contemporary music. In so doing, he has created dance of radiant beauty and unconfined joy.

‘You have to remember that the origins of classical ballet lie in fetes, in social celebrations. I wanted to make a celebration for today.’

Blake Works 1 is set to the mournful melodies of James Blake. Bleak romantic sentiments, articulated in luminous fragments through a fog of electronic effects. Playlist (EP) is danced with elegant precision, to the disco, house and neo-soul of Barry White, Peven Everett, Natalie Cole and others. 

'I don't live here anymore.
Put that away, and talk to me.
I'm not the only one with a fantasy.
As lonely as you feel right now,
Put that away, and talk to me.’
James Blake, 'Put That Away, and Talk To Me'

Precious Adams and James Streeter in Playlist by William Forsythe. Photograph: Laurent Liotardo

Twenty, and then more than thirty, dancers of extraordinary athleticism occupy the stage, the women in fuchsia pink, the men in claret and blue. They are together as one, relishing their own technique, all high kicks and long extensions, carefree and yet in crisp time - and with the occasional playful flourish. It’s completely dazzling, entirely exhilarating.

‘All these dancers are Olympic-level athletes, truly Olympian.’

Some years ago I attended a party where there was a group of ballet dancers on their night off. As the sounds of Evelyn ‘Champagne’ King and Shalamar boomed out from the stereo, they took to the floor. They were, of course, nimble and refined. But they were also deliberate, accurate, controlled. No mindless swaying or primal boogie for them. They were not lost in music; they were consciously inhabiting it. And this is what made them so compelling to watch. 

'It’s intellectual and it’s physical. In other words, you use your body to solve problems, and these problems are basically physics problems.’

In an interview with Sarah Crompton of The Times, Forsythe, now 72, explained how he approached his iconic 1987 work, ‘In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated.’

‘The ballet steps were the alphabet. What I did was put them in novel arrangements, taking them out of their usual sequences. Basically, I was surprising the expert reader. That’s how I changed the conversation.’

I like the analogy of changing the conversation. We all sometimes find ourselves, at work and play, trapped in discussions that are tedious, familiar, irrelevant. Often we sit passively in silence, feeling frustrated, constrained by a sense of impotence and inertia. But it is possible to shift the direction of a discourse: by bridging to another theme, by raising a seductive subject, by proposing an amusing gambit. It just takes skill, timing and courage.

Brands too should recognise that they don’t have to accept the codes and customs of their sector. If they are innovative and seditious - if they have a genuinely fresh perspective - then they can rewrite the language, reframe the dialogue and create a new set of conventions. Bold brands change the conversation.

As Forsythe suggests, we experience more intense emotions when we move.

'As human beings we're a little bit more inclined to feel an intensity when we’re involved in any kind of kinesis.’

‘You can suffer me to lay it on the line,
How I feel, though you can see it in my eyes.
Think about you when I see you stuck in time.
Freeze on the mind, neon devotion.
I never ever try to hide the way I feel.
You know I can’t resist that private sex appeal,
All that you reveal for me.
Surely, surely, surely you know,
You’re what I want.’
Peven Everett, ‘Surely Shorty’

No. 366

NOTES FROM THE HINTERLAND 6

Rehearsing and Editing Creativity

Next week the English National Ballet brings its award-winning programme of new ballets, Lest We Forget, to Sadler’s Wells. Three contemporary choreographers have created works reflecting in different ways on the First World War. I saw Lest We Forget last year at The Barbican and it’s a very moving experience. There are still some tickets available.

I attended a talk by Russell Maliphant who has created one of the pieces, Second Breath. Maliphant was classically trained, but has since used the learned vocabulary of classical ballet to create his own distinct choreographic language. He explores the interaction of movement and light with the eye of a film-maker. His dancers spin, twist and turn around each other. They redistribute each other’s weight, as if working with levers, pulleys and pistons. It’s a wonder to behold.

Maliphant explained that a lot of his creativity occurs when he’s working with his dancers in the studio, where he has the opportunity to respond to their different personalities and styles of movement. He also films his rehearsals and subsequently explores the possibilities available to him in the edit: rearranging the sequence of movement, deleting the unnecessary, reversing the action, slowing things down and speeding them up. This level of experimentation would not be possible, physically or financially, with live dancers in the studio.

In the communications business we often talk of work-shopping ideas; of giving creativity the room to breathe and develop in rehearsal; of exploring how technology can enrich (not just economise or speed up) the creative process. But it strikes me that hitherto this has been more rhetoric than common practice.

For the most part we’re still stuck in our linear, demarcated approach to idea development.  Concepts are formed in camera, refined through dialectic, pre-produced, produced. It’s a rhythm without fluidity or flexibility; without much space for creative collaboration or technical experimentation.

Couldn’t we do more to open the creative process up? Perhaps we need to take some dance lessons.

The Oresteia: Not A Window on the Ancient World, But a Mirror on Our Own

It’s Oresteia season in London as two productions of Aeschylus’ 458 BC tragedy open in theatres across town. Why do we feel the need to revisit this dark ancient story of murder and revenge? What relevance has it for us today?

In The Oresteia a father sacrifices his daughter to win over the gods; a wife kills her husband to atone for the murder of their daughter; a son kills his mother in vengeance for the death of his father; and the cycle of killings culminates in a court case. Blimey!

The Oresteia is a trilogy of plays about duty to one’s faith and community, to one’s family and to one’s self. There’s a sense that, once the series of revenge killings is in train, it will never stop. How could it? To some extent individuals are not masters of their own destiny. They are caught in a Fate-driven chain reaction of inevitable acts.

In these respects The Oresteia is as relevant today as when it was first performed. The modern world is gripped by wars whose origins can be traced back to tit-for-tat blood feuds; disputes that are justified by reference to duty and honour and revenge.

I wonder is this true of business too? Do we sometimes find ourselves caught in a cycle of action and reaction, unable to break out of competitive role-playing, incapable of seeing beyond the injustices of the past?

Sometimes inertia is the most powerful force in any organisation and it is also the most pernicious.

Like a Moth to a Flame

‘Like a moth to a flame
Burned by the fire
My love is blind
Can’t you see my desire?’

Janet Jackson/ That’s The Way Love Goes

Where music is concerned I have a sweet tooth.  I think it’s coming from Essex. I preferred gospel to blues, soul to funk, disco to house, acid jazz to techno. And I had a particular weakness for female soul vocals: for Gladys, Dionne and Diana; for Anita, Randy and Roberta. In my world Aretha was always the Queen, Donna defined disco and Mary J saved hip hop.

And then there was Janet Jackson.

Janet didn’t have the soul of Maxine, the heart of Chaka or the voice of Whitney. And many of her ‘80s recordings haven’t aged well, as they’re scaffolded in Jam and Lewis’ industrial production.

But give Janet a break. She was the tenth of ten children; her father was a tough old patriarch; she was Michael’s sister. Throughout her career she demonstrated admirable independence and an open mind.

And Janet gave us That’s The Way Love Goes, a definitive work for the sweet toothed soul fan. There’s the languorous rhythm, the melodious guitar pattern and Janet’s gentle, soothing serenade; not forgetting the warehouse-set video, where Janet’s hip mates sway diffidently to the beat from the ceiling-high speakers. Not unlike my own arrangement on a Saturday afternoon.

Of course, the central image of That’s The Way Love Goes is the tragic moth bewitched by a flame. I think I understand why people are attracted to doomed love. But I have always wondered: Why are moths attracted to flames? Surely they could evolve out of the suicidal self-immolation thing, given its endless repetition?

It transpires that the world of science is not entirely sure why moths are drawn to flame either. One theory suggests that they confuse fire with luminous female pheromones. Another suggests that it’s a primitive escape reflex gone wrong. But the dominant theory seems to be that the moths mistake artificial light sources for the moon, which is their primary navigational reference point.

It’s a rather sad thought: that your core point of reference, your North Star, is in fact leading you astray, to certain death.

It’s not entirely an alien concept for commerce. Many a business sets its controls for the heart of the profits, its navigation system almost entirely geared around financial returns. Only to find that, when you prioritise profit ahead of people and product, then your profits tend to suffer. It’s the commercial form of doomed love. Intense, sad, misguided, inevitable. ‘Like a moth to a flame, burned by the fire.’

No. 45