The Forsythe Company- Three Atmospheric Studies。

How amazing the way Forsythe approaches the political issue through dance.

A world which is violent but mute.


Composition I
It started with a mother speaking out "My son is arrested".
Then, the dancers were dancing. No music, but only the sound of breathing and sometimes dancers hit the floor by hands, which became another music after few minutes. In this part, I felt a very unusual power of the composition of movements and sounds. Every movement was precisely in order, sharp, strong and clean, but looked very messy in visual to give me the sense of battle or war. The sounds helped very much as well, though some of them were cues for the next movement, but it did not push me away from movements.



The dialogues were kind of humorous but black, and also show the sadness and helplessness of a mother who tried very hard to get involved into the situation and made it better, though it was not seemed like the way what she expected. During the conversation of the mother and interpreter there were several interruptions by another dancer’s talking who started to trace the lines across the stage in the middle of the composition. A very strong feeling of alienation which referred to the theory of Bertolt Brecht. From this, the feeling of war came up in Composition I became even more powerful and persuasive adding humanity in. And the plot of Composition II seemed to be clearer.




Composition III
One dancer talked like a presenter or a weatherman. Meanwhile, other dancers appeared with stronger movements than Composition I and the sounds made by the dances, which had been technically enhanced, resounded the din of war. An exaggerated American South accent soldier stared to explain the situation to mother, which was mainly about what happened was in order, that there is no reason for alarm. The layers started building up the atmosphere by every single element used on stage. Finally, the performance ended up at a culmination where the dancers started to lie down on the floor which was like dead bodies in battlefield, the soldier kept talking to mother, and the mother moved strangly, slowly, and no facial experssion but all controlled by the interpreter from Composition II. Lights out.


One of the most interesting and important parts was the sound. It grew and built up steady from Composition I to III. As I mentioned in Composition I nearly silent but only the breathing and few times when dancers hit the floor by hands. Those breathing sounds could be heard frequently in any dance performances, and this was one of using it well without bothering me. Following the second composition, characters began to talk, sounds became voices. And also in this part the use of the sound between characters were nice, especially the logic of the lines between mother and interpreter, of course, the most important interruption speech from the third person on stage. When you almost felt there were two different worlds on stage, one was mother and interpreter and another was the dancer, they suddenly became one conversation. I would not say it was new techniques of using conversation on stage, but it did have effect in this composition. Composition III, the strangest texture of sounds all appeared here through technology. The sounds from the dancers not only mocked perfectly the din of war but also went very well with the movements. The stage, costume, and lightening are very simple, therefore, sounds and movements had been carefully merged together and he tried to made this two elements become one. So the sounds became visible through movements, and the movements turned into acoustic.


Through this piece, I feel Forsythe, who is an American, strongly but tender accusing the war in the Middle East. An artwork (from still pieces to time base media) must have its own viewpoint, no matter how bias it is, as long as we find our best way to explain it. For me, he did, and I would like to say: Well done. He showed the anger but fulfilled with care to human beings, therefore, it was very powerful and the feelings filled all the space in the theatre. I was moved that it left a mark, neither a comma nor a query, but just a genuine mark made me think of war from the very small and private part in my mind, and you will always notice that.