Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-gq7q9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-23T04:28:24.321Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

William Forsythe, Eidos:Telos, and Intertextual Criticism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2012

Ann Nugent
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

At my first performance of Eidos:Telos, in Frankfurt in 1998, I discover a work of penetrating power that is both ordered and disordered. It is febrile at one moment and cool at the next. It is abstract but threaded through with symbolism, and its three acts exude darkness and mystery.

There are no obvious divisions into time or place, and the weave of obscure and fragmented allusions means that dramas build and drop away. The dancing bodies create a mass of curves, lines, and angles with astonishing fluency but in few centrally organized patterns. I try to make sense of the diversity of abstract dance that seems rooted in evasive purpose, and symbolism that lends itself to poetics rather more often than to literal meaning. I search for metaphors that will bind images together, but the imagery is delivered faster than the speed of thought. The movement is rooted in ballet, and fleetingly I sense Apollo lingering; warm to a fragment of Giselle and feel a frisson of excitement when a man sinks to the ground and folds over his body, because it reminds me of Nijinsky's L'Aprés midi d'un faune. But though these connections continue to burn in my mind, they are incidentals and personal to what I see, and quickly succeeded by others.

But I leave Eidos:Telos feeling somehow different, for my body is pumping with energy and ideas, and colorful dynamics are colliding in my head. It has taken me on a journey of the philosophical, kinaesthetic, and sensual, and I need to experience more.

Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , Summer 2007 , pp. 25 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Adshead-Lansdale, Janet. 1993/1994. “Dance and Critical Debate.” Dance Theatre Journal 11 (1): 22–24, 33.Google Scholar
Allen, Graham. 2000. Intertextuality: The New Critical Idiom. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ballett Frankfurt. [1995] 1998. Eidos:Telos Programme. Conceived by Gilpin, Heidi. Frankfurt: Frankfurt Opernhaus.Google Scholar
Banes, Sally. 1994. Writing Dancing in the Age of Postmodernism. Hanover: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland. 1977. Image Music Text. Selected and translated by Heath, Stephen. London: Fontana.Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland. 1990. The Pleasure of the Text. Translated by Miller, Richard. Oxford: Blackwell. First published as Le plaisir du texte. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1973.Google Scholar
Bergson, Henri. [1908] 1991. Matter and Memory. Translated by Paul, Nancy Margaret and Palmer, W. Scott. New York: Zone Books.Google Scholar
Birringer, Johannes. 1998. Media and Performance: Along the Border. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Boxberger, Edith. 1995. “Breaking New Ground from Deconstructivism.” Ballet International 3: 20.Google Scholar
Calasso, Robert. 1994. The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony. London: Vintage.Google Scholar
Caspersen, Dana. 1998. “Spider Text.” In Eidos:Telos Programme. Paris: Théâtre du Châtelet.Google Scholar
Caspersen, Dana. 2000. “It Starts from Any Point: Bill and the Frankfurt Ballett,” Choreography and Dance: An International Journal 5 (3): 25–39.Google Scholar
Copeland, Roger. 1993. “Dance Criticism and the Descriptive Bias.” Dance Theatre Journal 10 (3): 26–32.Google Scholar
Culler, Jonathan. 1981. The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
De Marinis, Marco. 1993. The Semiotics of Performance. Translated by Aine O'Healy. Indiana: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Deren, Maya. 1970. Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti. Kingston, New York: McPherson.Google Scholar
Driver, Senta. 1996. “Montreal.” Ballet Review 14 (1): 4.Google Scholar
Driver, Senta, ed. 2000. “William Forsythe.” Special issue, Choreography and Dance: An International Journal 5 (3). Contributions from Senta Driver, Dana Caspersen, Anne Midgette, Steven Spier, Roslyn Sulcas.Google Scholar
Elam, Keir. 1980. The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forsythe, William. 1999. Improvisation Technologies: A Tool for the Analytic Eye. CD-ROM. Vienna: ZKM.Google Scholar
Genette, Gérard. 1992. The Architext: An Introduction. Translated by Lewin, Jane E.. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Laura. 1999. “Meaningless Enchainments.” New Criterion on-line. Accessed from http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/17/feb99/jacobs.htm.Google Scholar
Kirstein, Lincoln. 1971. Movement and Metaphor. London: Pitman.Google Scholar
Kisselgoff, Anna. 1995. “Organized Chaos, Loud and Colorful.” New York Times (October 15): n.p.Google Scholar
Kisselgoff, Anna. 1998. “Forces of Order and Disorder.” New York Times (December 4): [weekend edition], 1, 26.Google Scholar
Kristeva, Julia. 1984. “The Semiotic and the Symbolic.” In Revolution in Poetic Language. Translated by Waller, Margaret, 25–106. New York and Oxford: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Manning, Susan Allene, and Benson, Melissa. 2001. “Interrupted Continuities: Modern Dance in Germany.” In Moving History: Dancing Cultures: A Dance History Reader. Edited by Dils, Ann and Albright, Ann Cooper, 218–27. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Midgette, Ann. 2000. “Forsythe in Frankfurt: A Documentation in Three Movements,” Choreography and Dance: An International Journal 5 (3): 13–24.Google Scholar
Nugent, Ann. 2000. “The Architexts of Eidos:Telos: A Critical Study Through Intertextuality of the Dance Text Conceived by William Forsythe.” Unpublished PhD diss., Guildford, University of Surrey.Google Scholar
Nugent, Ann. 2003. “Profile: William Forsythe.” Dance Theatre Journal 19 (2): 41–45.Google Scholar
Riffaterre, Michael. 1990. “Compulsory Reader Response: The Intertextual Drive.” In Intertextuality. Theories and Practices. Edited by Worton, Michael and Still, Judith. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Scholl, Tim. 1995. “Paris.” Ballet Review 23 (3): 13–14.Google Scholar
Sulcas, Roslyn. 1995a. “Channels for the Desire to Dance.” Dance Magazine (September): 52–59.Google Scholar
Sulcas, Roslyn. 1995b. “Frankfurt Ballett, Theatre du Chatelet, Paris.” Dance Magazine (October): 106.Google Scholar
Sulcas, Roslyn. 1998. “Frankfurt Ballett Brings Eidos to New York City.” Dance Magazine (December): 35.Google Scholar
Wilkins, Darrell. 1998. “William Forsythe: An American Iconoclast in Europe.” Ballet Review (Summer): 29.Google Scholar
Worton, Michael, and Still, Judith. 1990. Intertextuality: Theories and Practices. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar