Enemy in the Figure
The curtain opens on an intake of breath, a moment of coiled expectancy as William Forsythe's Enemy in the Figure springs into motion with a furious, tensile grace. Driven by the voracious rhythms of Thom Willem's music, the dancers become a pure visceral intelligence that dives through connection and shadow, ranging in this landscape of energetic time. It's "simply one of the most electrifying pieces of dance I've ever seen," says Stuart Sweeney of Ballet.co.uk, a European dance website.

The mysterious Enemy in the Figure… features a score by Thom Willems, whose fierce electronic music combines with bursts of bright light and a roving floodlight (manned by company members) to expose and abruptly obscure the eleven dancers as they leap over a rope that quivers along the stage. The dancers carve intricate patterns as they whirl and shimmer through space in counterpoint to the technology-saturated environment…Forsythe at his most strident.
The Observer, U.K.

William Forsythe (Choreographer) was born in New York City in 1949. He studied dance at Jacksonville University, Florida and later at the Joffrey Ballet School. In 1973 Forsythe joined Germany's Stuttgarter Ballett as a dancer, and later began choreographing works for the company. It was there that he made his first piece, Urlicht, a duet to the music of Gustav Mahler. Over the next years, Forsythe made numerous ballets for the Stuttgart Ballet and for other leading companies, including the Basel Ballet, Munich Ballet, the Deutsche Opera Ballet in Berlin, the Joffrey Ballet, and Netherlands Dance Theater. Forsythe's key works over the last 20 years include Gänge, Artifact, Impressing the Czar, Limb's Theorem, The Loss of Small Detail, A L I E/N A(C)TION, Eidos:Telos, Endless House and Kammer/Kammer. Forsythe continues to stage pieces for companies around the globe, and his work is in the repertoire of the New York City Ballet, the National Ballet of Canada, the Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, and the Paris Opéra Ballet, among others. In January 1999 Forsythe became director of both Ballett Frankfurt and TAT.

Enemy in the Figure is partially funded by a matching challenge grant from Alfred McDougal and Nancy Lauter, and supported by additional funding from Debbie Bricker, David Herro/Jay Franke and Timothy R. Schwertfeger and Gail Waller.

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago: Enemy in the Figure Photo © & courtesy of Todd Rosenberg

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago: Enemy in the Figure Photo © & courtesy of Todd Rosenberg

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago: Enemy in the Figure Photo © & courtesy of Todd Rosenberg