The Bayerisches Staatsballett (Bavarian State Ballet) kicks off the National Theater's Made in Germany festival next Tuesday night with the Taiwan premiere of William Forsythe's Limb's Theorem.
There is a long tradition of classical ballet in Munich, dating back to the mid-1880s. But for decades the state ballet company was the younger sibling of the Bavarian State Opera. The Bayerische Staatsballett has come a long way since it gained its independence from the opera in 1988 under the leadership of Konstanze Vernon. Now led by Ivan Liska, it has become a fully fledged performer on the international dance scene.
It is appropriate that its first visit to Taipei should begin with one of Forsythe's works, for over the past three decades the New York-born Forsythe has meshed Germanic precision with American radicalism to become one of the most talked about modern ballet choreographers in the world.
He has been credited with revolutionizing the world of classical ballet in his two decades with the Ballett Frankfurt. But Forsythe had already begun to make a name for himself as a choreographer when he was still dancing with the Stuttgart Ballet in the 1970s.
He spent four years as a journeyman choreographer after leaving Stuttgart in 1980, creating works for the Nederlands Dans Theater, the Paris Opera Ballet, among others, before taking the helm in Frankfurt in 1984.
Over the next 20 years, the works he created for Frankfurt deconstructed classical ballet's language and combined it with very theatrical stagings. Each new ballet for Frankfurt became a major event for the dance world.
Unfortunately, Forsythe's sensibilities clashed with those of Frankfurt's burghers, who preferred something more classical, and he disbanded the company at the end of its 2004 season. He has since found a new home in Dresden.
A sign of his prominence, however, was that there was such an outcry about the Frankfurt company's closing that the authorities in Frankfurt and Dresden (and their respective states of Hesse and Saxony) reached an arrangement to provide 75 percent of Forsythe's new company's annual budget.
Limb's Theorem is a prime example of Forsythe's work. Created in 1991, the 82-minute, three-act ballet is a challenge for both dancers and the audience. It has attained an almost cult-like status in Munich since Forsythe revived it for the Bayerisches Staatsballett in December 2004.
To begin with, it doesn't have a score, it has a “sound installation” by Thom Willems. Second, the individual parts are based on improvisation, which may be commonplace in jazz but is almost unheard of in classical ballet. The Bayerisches Staatsballett dancers had to attend workshops on improvisation before they even began the formal rehearsal process for the piece.
Then there is the staging — a huge, rotating sail-like sculpture in the first act, a curved wall in the second and a telescopic installation in the third. All three change the dimensions of the performance space.
In Limb's Theorem Forsythe forces his audiences to make a choice about what to focus on; he doesn't want them to just sit back and watch as if this was the upteenth version of Swan Lake they are seeing.
From the radical modernism of Forsythe, the company changes pace for its final two performances. Its Gala Program presents a tantalizing menu of seven works that mix of classical and contemporary pieces and is designed to showcase the company's technical talent. On the menu are Five Tangos and Solo by Hans van Manen, George Balachine's Agon — Pas de deux and Balachine's heir Peter Martins' Zakouski. The world of English ballet is showcased with Sir Fredrick Ashton's Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan. The program wraps up with Stephan Thoss' My Way, set to ole' blue eyes' himself, Frank Sinatra, followed by Davide Bombana's Century Rolls.
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