Eidos: Telos
Stage/Lighting
William
Forsythe
Music
Thom Willems
Design
Joel Ryan
Violin
Maxim Franke
Trombone
Christian
Dembowski
Daniel Scherf
Mike Tetzner
Speaker
Dana Caspersen
Dancers
Yoko Ando
Talal Al-Muhanna
Alan Barnes
Cora
Bos-Kroese
Allison Brown
Francesca Caroti
Kevin Carron
Ander Zabala
Amancio Gonzalez
Thierry Guiderdoni
Ander Zabala
Demond Hart
Ayman Harper
Virginia Hendrickson
Prue Lang
Vanessa Le Mat
Andras Lukacs
Fabrice Mazliah
Roberta Mosca
Mauricio de Oliveira
Nicole Peisl
Amy Raymond
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Ballet Frankfurt
Sadler's Wells
3 - 10 Nov 2001
It would take a long time to describe William Forsythe's Eidos: Telos fully. A short sketch would go as follows. The piece is divided into three parts. The first presents six dancers and one violinist in a stage set of differently- timed clocks; as a metronome keeps an even beat, the dancers perform spare, twisting choreography. In the second section, a topless woman speaks a long monologue about death, flowers, clouds and islands as she paces and writhes through an apocalyptic stage set of wires, screens, and yellow cellophane; she then calls forth a band of dancers whose simple movements accompany further angry monologues from a man and a woman. The third movement abandons both music and speech to begin with a near-silent group dance that uses the entire cast. At first, we hear only occasional throbs from a wire running down the middle of the stage; then a noisy, violent ending combines the various sounds of all three parts: trombone, violin, percussion, breathing, metronome, human voice.
Is all that clear? That is only the barest of outlines. There are so many obvious labels and allusions stuffed into this piece that the difficulty lies in knowing where to begin or end any explication. The first section has a title, "Self Meant to Govern," while the second and third have none–even Dana Caspersen, the woman, is called only "Speaker"–and audience members could have fun sketching a theory of the three sections' correlation to the Freudian divisions of superego, ego and id. But what about the relation of eidos and telos Maybe the ballet is about art's use of stasis and process. Yet none of the three sections seems to develop from any other: for example, Parts II and III abandon the references to time that seemed so crucial in Part I. Those later parts instead tell us a lot about death and rage. So is that horde in the second section a nod to Giselle's Wilis, then? The Greek of the title, together with some of the music and choreography in the opening section, suggest alternate ballet allusions–to Apollo or Agon those paragons of neoclassicism. (Eidos: Telos began with a commission to create a performance in honour of Stravinsky.) But while this idea is just strong enough to be unmistakable, it is never examined. Neither is the reference to aleatory work of Merce Cunningham and John Cage. In Caspersen's monologue, we hear another Greek influence, the ancient stories of Persephone and Arachne: "This voice is a spider's voice," her speech begins. The solo woman exploring a mythic identity: now we are in Martha Graham territory. But it is unclear what Eidos: Telos wants to do with that allusion and these archetypes; is this about femininity, perhaps, or feminine creativity, or memory, or something else? And then there are the biographical associations from Forsythe's own life, which he has mentioned in interviews.
Multiplicity of meaning can add to a ballet's power, of course. Yet here, conceptual layers only diffuse what emotion Eidos: Telos might have been able to summon. Forsythe's ballet is neither genuinely questioning nor artfully polished. He isn't interested in crafting an assured, balanced work of art, but he does not have the courage to follow any one of his experimental convictions and see where it might lead. Rather, Eidos: Telos hopes that lots of dead ends might appear, cumulatively, like a new direction. The choreographic credit adds "in association with the ensemble," and the piece does seem to bear the mark of too many dramaturges: Everyone adds his or her favorite postmodern bit, no one takes responsibility for the whole of the audience's experience.
This confusion is most damaging in the ballet's lack of control over its materials. Forsythe uses it all: technology, lighting, set, costume, voice, instrument, "noise." And oh yes, dance. There are a few passages that contain lovely steps and are pleasant to watch, but in general, the choreography isn't very interesting, and it often does not try to be. Steps are there only to link one idea to the next. The ideas are explained through other means. This warped emphasis seems self-defeating, since the dancers of Ballett Frankfurt are so obviously talented. A ballet should not have to resort to female nudity and an onstage brass trio–as Part III of this piece does–to generate excitement. And even when it goes to such lengths, Eidos: Telos cannot quite convince its audience that it has anything meaningful or moving to convey.
Siobhan Peiffer
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