Choreographer William Forsythe Holds Lecture with Pacific Northwest Ballet Tonight

SEATTLE, WA - Legendary choreographer William Forsythe will join Pacific Northwest Ballet on stage for a special lecture-demonstration on the eve of the first American program devoted entirely to his work. The evening will feature a candid interview of Mr. Forsythe by PNB artistic director Peter Boal, a peek behind the curtain to watch Mr. Forsythe working with PNB dancers, and an opportunity for audience members to ask questions. This is Mr. Forsythe's first visit to PNB to work directly with PNB dancers, and we couldn't be more excited to welcome this groundbreaking artist to our studios.

To watch the live broadcast of this event, visit www.PNB.org/Live tonight, March 11 at 6:30 pm (Pacific). Tickets to attend in person ($25) are available through the PNB Box Office, 206.441.2424, online at PNB.org, or at the PNB Box Office, 301 Mercer Street. Subject to availability, tickets are also available 90 minutes prior to showtime at McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer Street at Seattle Center.

With THE VERTIGINOUS THRILL OF FORSYTHE, Pacific Northwest Ballet becomes the first American dance company to present a program devoted entirely to the work of acclaimed choreographer William Forsythe. The triple bill, including two PNB premieres, presents distinctive works from a dance maker legendary for his radical inventiveness. Forsythe achieves perfect neo-classical form in The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude, a dizzy delight of refined technique and crystalline pointe work. A sampler of duets, individually re-worked for PNB, New Suite's multiple pairings articulate a diversity of forms as well as matters between the sexes. And In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated returns to the PNB stage: endlessly prized by dancers and audiences, its relentless pace and fierce physicality serve as paradigm for Forsythe's revolutionary impact on 21st-century ballet. The program also includes a musical prelude to shine the spotlight on the nationally renowned PNB Orchestra, currently celebrating its 25th Anniversary. THE VERTIGINOUS THRILL OF FORSYTHE runs for seven performances only, March 13 through March 22 at Seattle Center's Marion Oliver McCaw Hall. To download the press release for THE VERTIGINOUS THRILL OF FORSYTHE, click here. For more information and detailed program notes, visit PNB.org.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Raised in New York and principally trained in Florida with Nolan Dingman and Christa Long, William Forsythe danced with the Joffrey Ballet and later the Stuttgart Ballet, where he was appointed Resident Choreographer in 1976. Over the next seven years, he created new works for the Stuttgart ensemble and ballet companies in Munich, The Hague, London, Basel, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Paris, New York, and San Francisco. In 1984, he began a 20-year tenure as director of the Ballet Frankfurt.

After the closure of the Ballet Frankfurt in 2004, Forsythe established a new, more independent ensemble. The Forsythe Company, founded with the support of the states of Saxony and Hesse, the cities of Dresden and Frankfurt am Main, and private sponsors, is based in Dresden and Frankfurt am Main and maintains an extensive international touring schedule. Forsythe's most recent works are developed and performed exclusively by The Forsythe Company, while his earlier pieces are prominently featured in the repertoire of virtually every major ballet company in the world, including the Kirov Ballet, New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, the National Ballet of Canada, England's Royal Ballet, and the Paris Opera Ballet.

Awards received by Forsythe and his ensembles include the New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Award (1988, 1998, 2004, 2007) and London's Laurence Olivier Award (1992, 1999, 2009). Forsythe has been conveyed the title of Commandeur des Arts et Lettres (1999) by the government of France and has received the German Distinguished Service Cross (1997), the Wexner Prize (2002) and the Golden Lion for Livetime Achievement in Venice (2010).

In collaboration with media specialists and educators, Forsythe has developed new approaches to dance documentation, research, and education. His 1994 computer application "Improvisation Technologies: A Tool for the Analytical Dance Eye," developed with the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, is used as a teaching tool by professional companies, dance conservatories, universities, postgraduate architecture programs, and secondary schools worldwide. 2009 marked the launch of "Synchronous Objects for One Flat Thing, reproduced," a digital online score developed with Ohio State University that reveals the organizational principles of the choreography and demonstrates their possible application within other disciplines.

As an educator, Forsythe is regularly invited to lecture and give workshops at universities and cultural institutions. In 2002, Forsythe was chosen as the founding Dance Mentor for The Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. He currently co-directs and teaches in the Dance Apprentice Network aCross Europe (D.A.N.C.E.) program, an interdisciplinary professional insertion program based at Dresden's Palucca Schule. Forsythe is an Honorary Fellow at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance in London and holds an honorary doctorate from the Juilliard School in New York. In 2014, Forsythe announced he will join the University of Southern California's newly-created Glorya Kaufman School of Dance as a professor in fall 2015.

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