With a clairvoyant Asian manicurist as guide and a lavishly costumed supporting cast of agents, shamans, patrons, parrots and pirates, The Returns takes its audience on a rakish tour of art culture. Art as commodity and fetish, the artist as medium and charlatan, the art market as salon and playing field – Forsythe’s caustic, ribald Defilée of archetypes and attitudes grants its audience no quarter.
dates
Mon June 23 2014 10:30 PM
Tue June 24 2014 10:30 PM
Wed June 25 2014 10:30 PM
information
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Duration of performance unknown (zonder pauze)
With The Returns, the groundbreaking American choreographer William Forsythe (1949) delivers a critical and humorous commentary on the art world. Forsythe first came to the Holland Festival in 2008, with two performances, Decreation and Kammer/Kammer. Last year, the Holland Festival presented one of his most exceptional yet seldom staged works, Quintett (1993), performed by Benjamin Millepied's dance company LA Dance Project. The Returns premiered in 2009, is another of his rarely performed choreographies. Up until now it has only been staged in Dresden and Frankfurt, the reason being the piece’s specific demands concerning the performance venue.
In The Returns, a clairvoyant manicurist (played by Yoko Ando) takes the audience along on a rakish tour of art culture, a world inhabited by lavishly costumed agents, patrons, parrots and pirates. In a white setting reminiscent of a fashion atelier or a modern art gallery, art is presented as commodity and fetish, the artist as a middleman or charlatan, the art market as a salon where other people's work is mindlessly tinkered with. Forsythe and his eighteen performers poke fun not only at the art world in general, but the vanity in the world of ballet and dance as well. Forsythe shows us his ruthless side with The Returns, manipulating the laws of dance in his inimitable way.
The music is by Dietrich Krüger, Sebastian Rietz and Thom Willems. As well as the choreography, Forsythe is also in charge of set design and wardrobe for this performance (wardrobe in collaboration with Stephen Galloway and Dorothee Merg), which recycles 30 years of the company’s costumes and a huge selection of objects from home building stores.
