It can be chin-stroking work, that of William Forsythe, but even when it’s mildly irritating you can see there’s always a brain at work and some awesome bodies too.
Forsythe is the former director of Ballet Frankfurt who deconstructed classical ballet then pushed his experiments in dance further still. Plucking out and playing with theatrical elements — sound, text, set, lighting — he’s always looking at new ways to generate movement, and new compulsions for contorting the body.
The starter tonight is a most pleasing 20-minute quartet, N.N.N.N, that’s straightforward in Forsythe terms: four men panting their way through a random catalogue of moves. It sets up its own journey of pace and rhythm, connections and diversions, to make a nonsense game that actually makes complete sense.
The main is a new work, made up of old ones. Study #3 is a collection of elements from pieces spanning 30 years of Forsythe’s career, repurposed into something that looks as if it’s been cooked up in the studio last week. A little half-cooked, perhaps. Performers make silly noises into the mic as a soundtrack to movement (that’s the irritating bit), and pairs of dancers tangle their bodies into knots, like sportswear-clad pretzels (that’s a good bit). Forsythe likes to goad bodies into awkward gaits and shapes but his dancers have an incredible ability to surprise, and amaze with their physical facility (see the twisting and torquing of Dana Caspersen’s tiny frame). Those bodies speak louder than the voices gibbering into the mic.
Until 20 Jun (0844 412 4300, sadlerswells.com)
