'I don't care so much about choreography, I care about dancing.'
William Forsythe

I recently watched a splendid double bill of William Forsythe’s dance works performed by the English National Ballet (at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London).

The American choreographer has taken the vocabulary of traditional classical ballet steps, cut it up and reconfigured it around contemporary music. In so doing, he has created dance of radiant beauty and unconfined joy.

‘You have to remember that the origins of classical ballet lie in fetes, in social celebrations. I wanted to make a celebration for today.’

Blake Works 1 is set to the mournful melodies of James Blake. Bleak romantic sentiments, articulated in luminous fragments through a fog of electronic effects. Playlist (EP) is danced with elegant precision, to the disco, house and neo-soul of Barry White, Peven Everett, Natalie Cole and others. 

'I don't live here anymore.
Put that away, and talk to me.
I'm not the only one with a fantasy.
As lonely as you feel right now,
Put that away, and talk to me.’
James Blake, 'Put That Away, and Talk To Me'

Twenty, and then more than thirty, dancers of extraordinary athleticism occupy the stage, the women in fuchsia pink, the men in claret and blue. They are together as one, relishing their own technique, all high kicks and long extensions, carefree and yet in crisp time - and with the occasional playful flourish. It’s completely dazzling, entirely exhilarating.

‘All these dancers are Olympic-level athletes, truly Olympian.’

Some years ago I attended a party where there was a group of ballet dancers on their night off. As the sounds of Evelyn ‘Champagne’ King and Shalamar boomed out from the stereo, they took to the floor. They were, of course, nimble and refined. But they were also deliberate, accurate, controlled. No mindless swaying or primal boogie for them. They were not lost in music; they were consciously inhabiting it. And this is what made them so compelling to watch. 

'It’s intellectual and it’s physical. In other words, you use your body to solve problems, and these problems are basically physics problems.’

In an interview with Sarah Crompton of The Times, Forsythe, now 72, explained how he approached his iconic 1987 work, ‘In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated.’

‘The ballet steps were the alphabet. What I did was put them in novel arrangements, taking them out of their usual sequences. Basically, I was surprising the expert reader. That’s how I changed the conversation.’

I like the analogy of changing the conversation. We all sometimes find ourselves, at work and play, trapped in discussions that are tedious, familiar, irrelevant. Often we sit passively in silence, feeling frustrated, constrained by a sense of impotence and inertia. But it is possible to shift the direction of a discourse: by bridging to another theme, by raising a seductive subject, by proposing an amusing gambit. It just takes skill, timing and courage.

Brands too should recognise that they don’t have to accept the codes and customs of their sector. If they are innovative and seditious - if they have a genuinely fresh perspective - then they can rewrite the language, reframe the dialogue and create a new set of conventions. Bold brands change the conversation.

As Forsythe suggests, we experience more intense emotions when we move.

'As human beings we're a little bit more inclined to feel an intensity when we’re involved in any kind of kinesis.’

‘You can suffer me to lay it on the line,
How I feel, though you can see it in my eyes.
Think about you when I see you stuck in time.
Freeze on the mind, neon devotion.
I never ever try to hide the way I feel.
You know I can’t resist that private sex appeal,
All that you reveal for me.
Surely, surely, surely you know,
You’re what I want.’
Peven Everett, ‘Surely Shorty’

No. 366