Artifact was the first work that the groundbreaking dance-maker William Forsythe created in 1984 for the legendary Ballet Frankfurt. It is, therefore, pure ‘vintage’ Forsythe, even though it is as aggressively and engagingly provocative today as it was 28 years ago. It therefore comes across as a theatrically vibrant reminder of where it all started. Central are the quirky postmodern challenges that Forsythe first laid down to both the ballet canons and the set rules of traditional theatre-going. Hence the curtain coming down and going up more or less unexpectedly and/or arbitrarily, an idea aimed at questioning the way audiences used to watch — and still do — a ballet, which was to become Steptext’s main feature one year later, in 1985.
There is also clever use of ‘distracting’ elements, such as the seemingly superfluous spoken text, the presence of a man with a megaphone and a female actress donning a period costume similar to that worn by both the good and the bad fairies in an internationally known production of the classic Sleeping Beauty. It is she who invites viewers to ‘step inside’, as if following a rather garbled and somewhat amusing fairy tale-like narrative — later on, in 1987, different fairy tales were cleverly woven together in Same Old Story, one of Forsythe’s most mind-boggling and beautiful works. Finally, there is mesmerising use of shadows and lights that challenges the traditional sanctity of the viewer’s visual experience — this, too, was destined to become one of Forsythe’s signature traits.
Wrapped in all this is some of the most innovative and glorious-looking dance-making ever seen, which shifts seamlessly from a superbly conceived game of quotations — which highlights Forsythe’s admiration for Balanchine and other ballet traditions — to a superbly inventive multilayered text.
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