CULTURE

Athens Festival presents threefold tribute to dancer William Forsythe

William Forsythe, one of the great pioneers of contemporary dance, is the object of a major tribute by the Athens Festival this summer. Structured in three parts, the tribute will feature, for the first time ever in Greece, two seminal works by the American choreographer created during his 20-year term at the Frankfurt Ballet (1984-2004), works that have been incorporated into the repertory of some of the world’s greatest dance companies. The tribute also includes some of his most recent creations with his current dance company and an exhibition of installations by Forsythe titled «City of Abstracts.» Starting at the Athens Concert Hall on Wednesday and Thursday, the tribute will be launched with a Lyon Opera ballet production of «Limb’s Theorem» (1990), while on July 9 and 10, the Royal Ballet of Flanders will take the stage at the same venue with Forsythe’s masterpiece «Impressing the Czar,» a three-act ballet which parades all the greatest epochs of classical dance, from the time of the imperial ballets to the great pioneer George Balanchine. Lastly, at the Pireos 260 venue, the Forsythe Company will present two recent creations: the study «Three Atmospheric Studies» on July 6-8, and the performing installation «Heterotopia» on July 10-12. «Three Atmospheric Studies» premiered in New York earlier this year and was hailed as Forsythe’s most political work to date, as it makes overt references to the war in Iraq. «Heterotopia,» according to the Forsythe Company’s website (www.theforsythecompany.de), «is a meditation on the nature of translation and the failures that attend its efforts. The work transpires in two obscure topographies of unarticulated desire. One, a raucous and supernatural oratorio, which is performed in incomprehensible yet intelligible languages, serves as a complementary orchestra to the other, a strange assembly of listening creatures, whose futile attempts to understand the perplexing music result in still stranger actions.» Athens Festival, tel 210.327.2000.

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