Inside Enemy

Abstract

The first part of this chapter was initially published in German in 2004. It offers a firsthand look into what it is like to be onstage and inside the mind of a dancer as he propels himself through a furious solo choreographed by William Forsythe for the contemporary ballet Enemy in the Figure. The second part explains the parameters of improvisation which Forsythe and his ballet practitioners in Frankfurt experimented in the time leading up to the creation of Enemy. It shows how those experiments led them to rethink, and partially deconstruct, their daily practice of ballet training. The chapter, offering quotes from interviews with Forsythe as well as from previously published articles about this ballet, explains why Enemy in the Figure continues to be one of the most celebrated and performed ballets in the entire Forsythe repertory.