Version studio, with no light, no set et no costume, presented during "La Fabrique" : workshops, repertory, video installation and posters with the Ballet de l'Opéra de Lyon on 10 December 2016 at the CN D in Pantin. 

“A departure from the mechanics of the theatrical ritual, “Steptext”  attempts to suspend the mechanisms, so fundamental as accessories, of the execution of the performance which has determined the structure of  the stage performance. It produces a series of musical, scenographic and  choreographic “suspenses”, which create an environment of charged narration (for a woman and three men)."

William Forsythe

“Endless stretches, 360° ronds de jambe, grands jetés just above the  ground while turning around their partner. Four dancers as tense as the strings on Bach's violin, whose austere and harrowing beauty goes so well with Forsythe's futuristic dance.”

Sylvie de Nussac

Source: programs of the CN D & CCN-Ballet de Lorraine

Raised in New York and initially trained in  Florida with Nolan Dingman and Christa Long, 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, where he created works such as Artifact (1984),  Impressing the Czar (1988), Limb’s Theorem (1990), The Loss of Small  Detail (1991), A L I E / N A(C)TION (1992), Eidos:Telos (1995), Endless  House (1999), Kammer/Kammer (2000), and Decreation (2003)  

After the closure of the Ballet Frankfurt in 2004, Forsythe  established a new ensemble, The Forsythe Company, which he directed from  2005 to 2015. Works produced with this ensemble include Three  Atmospheric Studies (2005), You made me a monster (2005), Human Writes  (2005), Heterotopia (2006), The Defenders (2007), Yes we can’t  (2008/2010), I don’t believe in outer space (2008), The Returns (2009)  and Sider (2011). Forsythe’s most recent works were 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 Mariinsky Ballet, New York  City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, Semperoper  Ballet Dresden, 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 Hessische Kulturpreis/Hessian  Culture Award (1995), the German Distinguished Service Cross (1997), the  Wexner Prize (2002), the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale (2010),  Samuel H Scripps / American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime  Achievement (2012) and the Grand Prix de la SACD (2016).

Forsythe has been commissioned to produce architectural and  performance installations by architect-artist Daniel Libeskind  (Groningen, 1989), ARTANGEL (London,1997), Creative Time (New York,  2005), and the SKD – Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (2013, 2014).   These “Choreographic Objects”, as Forsythe calls his installations,  include among others White Bouncy Castle (1997), City of Abstracts  (2000), The Fact of Matter (2009), Nowhere and Everywhere at the Same  Time No. 2 (2013) and Black Flags (2014). His installation and film  works have been presented in numerous museums and exhibitions, including  the Whitney Biennial (New York, 1997), Festival d’Avignon (2005, 2011),  Louvre Museum (2006),  Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich (2006), 21_21  Design Sight in Tokyo (2007), Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus  (2009), Tate Modern (London, 2009), Hayward Gallery, (London 2010), MoMA  (New York 2010), ICA Boston (2011), Venice Biennale (2005, 2009, 2012,  2014), MMK – Museum für Moderne Kunst (Frankfurt am Main, 2015) and the  20th Biennale of Sydney, 2016.

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 ZKM / Zentrum für  Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe, 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 The Ohio State University that reveals the  organizational principles of the choreography and demonstrates their  possible application within other disciplines. Synchronous Objects was  the pilot project for Forsythe's Motion Bank, a research platform  focused on the creation and research of online digital scores in  collaboration with guest choreographers.

As an educator, Forsythe is regularly invited to lecture and  give workshops at universities and cultural institutions. In 2002,  Forsythe was chosen as one the founding Dance Mentor for The Rolex  Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. 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. Forsythe is a current  Professor of Dance and Artistic Advisor for the Choreographic Institute  at the University of Southern California Glorya Kaufman School of Dance.

Source : Forsythe Company Website

More information :

Forsythe Company website

Since 2001, the National Center for Dance (CND) has been making recordings of its shows and educational programming and has created resources from these filmed performances (interviews, danced conferences, meetings with artists, demonstrations, major lessons, symposia specialized, thematic arrangements, etc.).

As early as 1969, when arriving at the head of the “Opéra Nouveau de Lyon”, Louis Erlo gave a key place to dance. For the first time, an opera house outside of Paris consecrated to its ballet company entire events devoted to dance.
Ever since, it has never stopped opening up to every kind of source, be it a stream or a river, close or far, harmonious or stormy. But, whatever the case, always talented. Right from the start, the Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon has lived out this vivifying opening to the world, with its first directors, the Italian Vittorio Biagi, then the Yugoslav Milko Speremblek and the New-Zealander Gray Veredon, who were all in the neo-classical, Béjartian movement of the times. 

But, as of 1985, it was Françoise Adret who gave the company a resolutely plural turn. “Mère Adret” as her dancers affectionately called her, had an eye, the gift of the gab and a large address book. Above all, Française had travelled widely and her mission was to give the troop a national and international dimension. She built up a repertory based on a twofold spectrum: great international choreographers who were still little demanded, (and not the least of them, including Jiří Kylián, Mats Ek, Nacho Duato or William Forsythe) and an opportunity given to “young French dance” (Mathilde Monnier, Maryse Delente, or Angelin Preljocaj)… In any troop, there are moments of grace. But, in Lyon, a lightning bolt was to change the course of history. In 1985, no one imagined that a magical doll (Maguy Marin’s Snow White) would provide the company with a world tour, with no fewer than three trips to the USA in just 1987… Three years later, Lyon did it again by creating the famous rereading of Romeo and Juliet by Angelin Prejlocaj. This was a fresh challenge (and, for the choreographer, his first important commission), and another memorable piece. The die was now cast …
When, in 1991, the Greek ballet-master and director Yorkos Loukos replaced Françoise Adret, the trend was set and has continued to thrive until today, with an extremely open-minded “choreographic” palette. Maguy Marin, who had become resident choreographer, set off even more sparks when, in 1993, she inaugurated the new Opéra de Lyon with an offbeat version of Coppélia set in a popular bar in the suburbs of Lyon. With turnings-back towards the history of dance, views of the contemporary scene, visions of what it will be tomorrow, a plurality of styles, the ages of the choreographers, their origins, and backgrounds, the strength of the Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon comes from the very absence of any particularity, except if it is the highly diverse repertory as sought out by Yorgos Loukos. It goes without saying that it attracts the public (who love novelty) and today’s young dancers, who like and are used to changes of style. Even the teachers are in constant motion, changing every month, so as to avoid any routine.

Today, the company has a repertory of 117 pieces, over half of which are creations. A list of the choreographers who have worked in Lyon is a reminder of the importance of the pioneers of new French dance (Mathilde Monnier, Jean-Claude Gallotta) and its young cousins (from Jérôme Bel to Christian Rizzo, Alain Buffard or Rachid Ouramdane). It also means meeting the guiding lights of modern American dance (Trisha Brown, Merce Cunningham, Lucinda Childs), from post-classic energy (William Forsythe, Benjamin Millepied) to the "next wave" (such as Otto Ramstad). It means exploring Belgian musicality (de Keersmaeker) Swedish theatricality (Mats Ek), Czech lyricism (Jiří Kylián), or Israeli power (Ohad Naharin, Emanuel Gat). It means getting used to seeing new talents (Tania Carvalho, Alessandro Sciarroni, Marina Mascarell..). It means… being at the confluences of a dance that has never been so open to the world.

Source: Opéra de Lyon 's website

More information : opera-lyon.com