For the opening of their 2018-2019 Spring season, Boston Ballet is preparing for an exciting program of renowned choreographer and artist William Forsythe to be performed at the Boston Opera House.
William Forsythe is one of the most influential choreographers living and working today. For over four decades, his works reexamine ballet’s past, redefine its present, and reimagine its future.
– Mikko Nissinen, Artistic Director of Boston Ballet
Each of the three ballets – Playlist (EP), Blake Works I, Pas/Parts 2018 – adds a unique stamp on the company’s history.
Marking Forsythe’s first world-premiere to be choreographed on an American company in 27 years is Playlist (EP), an expansion of Playlist (Track 1, 2), a work created for English National Ballet in 2018. It is set to a medley of hip hop and R&B music which the choreographer believes “enables contemporary audiences to see the practice of ballet as an ongoing project of cultural relevance.”
Blake Works I makes its North American premiere during this program. This piece was created in 2016 for Paris Opera Ballet and is set to music from Grammy Award nominee James Blake’s album “The Colour in Anything”.
The most recent iteration of Pas/Parts –Pas/Parts 2018 – is the reworking of a ballet that was choreographed on Paris Opera Ballet in 1999, revised for San Francisco Ballet in 2016, and again for Boston Ballet in 2018. The electronic score is composed by Thom Willems, a frequent collaborator with Forsythe and provides the audio partner to the series of solos, duets, trios, quartets, and ensemble movements that the ballet is comprised of.
The video below provides wonderful first-person insight to how Forsythe has approached this program’s casting and choreographic process.
Full on Forsythe will be at the Boston Opera House in Boston from March 7-17, 2019; more details can be found here. As a prelude to the theatre experience and to further their knowledge of the man behind the ballets, audience members can visit the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston‘s interactive and visually stimulating exhibit William Forsythe: Choreographic Objects which is on display until February 21, 2019.
Source for Boston Ballet Presents Full on Forsythe: Boston Ballet | Featured Photo courtesy of Boston Ballet of Roddy Doble, Patrick Yocum, and Hannah Bettes in William Forsythe’s Pas/Parts 2018 © Rosalie O’Connor
