Mme. Hermine Posted June 6, 2004 Share Posted June 6, 2004 From the Contra Costa Times, a review of Ballet Frankfurt's performances by Mary Ellen Hunt: (thanks to ballet.co.uk for the link) http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctime...rts/8845739.htm WHETHER INTIMATE or in your face, American choreographer William Forsythe's highly distilled and analytical ballets have often incited controversy. But now that the German-based Ballett Frankfurt, which opened a three-day run at Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall Thursday night, faces dissolution, audiences have just one last chance to see Forsythe's legendary company on its farewell tour of the United States. Link to comment
Alexandra Posted June 9, 2004 Share Posted June 9, 2004 Paul Parish reviews Ballett Frankfurt for DanceView Times: Weird and Wonderful Moves The whole evening seemed a happy display of lots of movement research. It was a cheerful, "what me worry?" sort of farewell tour. Even the last piece—the notorious table ballet (One Flat Thing Reproduced), which looks like a really bad day in special ed class—was by Forsythe standards only moderately disturbing, and the invention, the brainy discoveries, the "look what I can do" feats of twisting and lunging and piking and isolation never flagged. One Flat Thing is a based on a resonant theatrical trope: it is an obstacle course. Ancestors include Little Eva's struggle across the ice-floes in the famous melodrama Uncle Tom's Cabin, countless Escape movies. But it's also clearly a metaphor for the company's predicament (up against bureaucratic obstacles on all sides). It also speaks to everyone caught in some kind of grid-lock these days. Link to comment
Kate B Posted June 14, 2004 Share Posted June 14, 2004 Is the company definitely being disbanded? I thought (I don't know where I heard this) they had been saved somehow. Link to comment
Alexandra Posted June 14, 2004 Share Posted June 14, 2004 (edited) I think the company in its present form will be disbanded after this tour, but there will be a new group associated with the city of Dresden as well as Frankfurt. I don't think it is yet clear whether this means that the group will just pick up and move, and everything will be the same except the name and the funding,. Edited June 15, 2004 by Alexandra Link to comment
Kate B Posted June 15, 2004 Share Posted June 15, 2004 Aha, thank you, Alexandra. I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed it doesn't change too much! Link to comment
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