An American
choreographer, born in 1949. He studied at the
Joffrey Ballet. He was a
soloist with the
Stuttgart Ballet from 1973 to 1980 (at the invitation of its director
John Cranko), and became director of the Ballett
Frankfurt in 1984. His
choreography is usually
discordant and
disorienting. He is one of modern ballet's leading choreographers. He now also often does all aspects, such as costume, staging, and lighting.
His first ballet was Urlicht, premièred on 18 November 1976 at Stuttgart, to Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn. His works have been
- Urlicht, 1976, Mahler
- Daphne, 1977, music of Dvorak
- Bach Violin Concerto in A minor, 1977
- Flore Subsimplici, 1977, music of Handel
- From the Most Distant Time, 1978, György Ligeti
- Traum des Galilei, 1978, Krzystof Penderecki
- Aria de la Folia, 1978, Hans Werner Henze
- Orpheus, 1979, Henze
- Love Songs, 1979, songs of Burt Bacharach et al. sung by Dionne Warwick, Aretha Franklin
- The Time Cycle, 1979, music of Lucas Foss
- Joyleen Gets Up, Gets Down, Goes Out, 1980, Boris Blacher
- 'Tis a Pity She's a Whore, 1980, Thomas Jahn
- Famous Mother's Club, 1980, David Cunningham, a solo for the dancer Lynn Seymour
- Say Bye Bye, 1980, music collage by Forsythe
- Whisper Moon, 1981 with Axel Manthey, music by William Bolcom
- Tancred and Clorinda, 1981, Monteverdi arranged by Luciano Berio
- Event 1,2,3, 1981 with Ron Thornhill, music collage by Forsythe
- Die Nacht aus Blei, 1981, Hans Jürgen von Bose
- Gänge I, 1982, various music
- Gänge, 1983, Thomas Jahn
- Mental Model, 1983, Stravinsky
- Square Deal, 1983, various taped and prepared music
- France/Dance, 1983, Bach; roles created by Sylvie Guillem and Laurent Hilaire
- Berg AB, 1984, contribution to a film
- Artifact, 1984, various music including Bach
- Steptext, 1985, Bach
- LDC, 1985, Thom Willems
- How to Recognize Greek Art I and II, 1985, music collage by Forsythe
- Isabelle's Dance, 1986, Eva Crossman-Hecht
- Pizza Girl, 1986, Forsythe contributing, music of Thom Willems
- Skinny, 1986, music by Forsythe and Willems
- Baby Sam, 1986, Willems
- Die Befragung des Robert Scott, 1986, Willems
- Big White Baby Dog, 1986, Willems
- New Sleep, 1987, Willems
- The Loss of Small Detail, 1987, Willems
- In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated, 1987, Willems; roles created by Sylvie Guillem and Laurent Hilaire
- Same Old Story, 1987, Willems
- Impressing the Czar, 1988, various music
- Behind the China Dogs, 1988, Leslie Stuck
- The Vile Parody of Address, 1988, Bach
- Enemy in the Figure, 1989, Willems
- Slingerland, 1989, Gavin Bryars; later part by Willems
- Limb's Theorem, 1990, Willems
- The Second Detail, 1991, Willems; includes costumes by Issey Miyake, text by Yukio Mishima
- Snap. Woven Effort, 1991, Willems; costumes by Gianni Versace
- Marion/Marion, 1991, Bernard Hermann's music from Psycho; costume by Versace
- Herman Schmerman, 1992, Willems; Versace
- As a Garden in This Setting, 1992, Willems
- Alie/n A(c)tion, 1992, Willems and Schönberg
- Quintett, 1993, Forsythe contributing, music of Gavin Bryars
- Self Meant to Govern, 1994, Willem and Maxim Franke
- Pivot House, 1994, Kraton Surakarta
- Eidos: Telos, 1995, a collaboration including Forsythe and Willems
- Firstext, 1995, Forsythe contributing, Willems
- Invisible Film, 1995, various baroque music
- Of Any If And, 1995, Willems
for Christ's sake stop choreographing, you don't know how weary I have become of typing this... 1995... deep breath, almost there
- The The, 1995, choreography with Dana Caspersen, no music?
- Four Point Counter, 1995, Willems
- Solo, 1995, Willems
- Six Counterpoints, 1996, various music; included The The and Four Point Counter
- Sleepers Guts, a collaboration including Forsythe and Willems
- Tight Roaring Circle, 1997
I don't give a flying fuck who did what any more, I just want to get onto my next node
- Hypothetical Stream, 1997
- small void, 1998
- Opus 31, 1998
- Quartetto, 1998
- workwithinwork, 1998
- Woundwork I, 1999
- Pas./parts, 1999
- Endless House, 1999, including gamelan, oh that's interesting
- 7 to 10 Passages, 2000
- One Flat Thing, Reproduced, 2000
- Kammer/Kammer, 2000