Boston Ballet Presents AS ANTICIPATED in November

"This highly anticipated program encapsulates the cutting-edge artistry that Boston audiences have experienced with William Forsythe ballets, and introduces new audiences to his revelatory style," said Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen. "I am proud of the longstanding relationship we continue to enjoy with Forsythe, which has cultivated the richest collection of his ballets in the United States. Forsythe's aesthetic is interwoven into the fabric and DNA of Boston Ballet artists. It is truly an honor to have him here, working with our dancers and creating a new work for our Company. A world premiere from him is an international event you won't want to miss."

The Working Title of William Forsythe's world premiere is Défilé, which is a tradition in the Paris Opera Ballet, originally choreographed in 1926 by Leo Staats. At the Paris Opera, Le Grand Défilé du Ballet is a spectacle that showcases the artists of the entire company in a stately, processional manner. In true Forsythe style, audiences can expect this new work to both honor and reinvent balletic tradition. It will serve as a prequel to Artifact Suite and while extracting co-ordinational motifs from Artifact, it places their logic in a more formal, strictly contrapuntal context.

The music for Forsythe's premiere will be a new composition by Boston Ballet Music Director Mischa Santora, based on Bach's Goldberg Variations, specifically Variation 15, Canon. This resonates with the intentions of the original Artifact's composer, Eva Hecht, who reconfigured and transcribed central motifs of Bach's Chaconne in D-minor from solo violin to piano.

Artifact Suite (2004), which contains choreographic material distilled from Forsythe's full-
length work Artifact, created in 1984 at the beginning of his 20-year tenure as artistic director of Ballet Frankfurt. Artifact is one of the most impactful dance works created in the past 100 years. Boston Ballet is the only North American ballet company to perform the full-length Artifact. In Artifact Suite, the surrounding dramatic context of the original four-act work has been excised to allow many of the dances to be preserved in isolation. A similar tactic was deployed by Marius Petipa by condensing the dances of his full-length Paquita (1882) into one compact act, setting a precedent for future choreographers. For this program, Forsythe will add a formal prologue to the suite, which will feature soloists, ensemble, and music in part by J.S. Bach.

Approximate Sonata (1996) highlights the developmental line of Forsythe's pas de deux work, the stylistic origins of which are on full display in the iconic double pas de deux of Artifact's second act. This formal combination of classical vertigo and grace, reverence and reference, signal yet another way Forsythe has acknowledged his 19th century predecessors, honoring the anarchic vitality that allowed their now historic works to win a significant place in our collective memories.