The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude
Creation by the Frankfurt Ballet on January 20, 1996
Premiere by the Ballet du Capitole on November 4, 2009
Music Franz Schubert
Allegro Vivace from Symphony No. 9 in C major, called "the Great" D944
Choreography William Forsythe
Costumes Stephen Galloway
Set and lights William Forsythe
With its title borrowed from Roland Barthes, The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude is the second part of Two Ballets in the Manner of the late XXth Century.
Approximate Sonatas and The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude are the last sequence of Six Counter Points, work in six parts, created from October 1995 till January 1996.
Six Counter Points are less "counterpoints", in the musical sense of the word, than points of view, studies, essays on ballet, its modern use and academic survivals.
The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude has a distanced look, half-tender, half-ironic about the legacy of Marius Petipa and George Balanchine, made of starchy conventions and decorum from another century, structural devout in choreographic composition (variations shared out among pas de deux, pas de trois and ensembles), precision and clarity in the speed... All the essential elements of the ballet are there: tutus (although they have been ingeniously brought up to date by the facetious Stephen Galloway), point shoes, virtuosity, lyricism ...
The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude is not really a parody, but a game with references that does not deny itself the good thing of "entertainment".
This piece is part of our time by its opened celebration of dancers, able to transcend, to transmute -in brilliant alchemists- technical difficulties in a triumphant physical mastery.