Alignigung II (2017)

Overview

In a video installation distilled from a live performance that Forsythe choreographed and directed in 2016, dancers Rauf "Rubberlegz" Yasit and Riley Watts clasp and unclasp each other in complex configurations that make it difficult for the viewer to determine where one body ends and the other begins. This slow-motion physical and optical puzzle, which Forsythe calls an "entanglement", is a choreographic event from which the common elements typically associated with choreography—the structural development of time and space and the visual isolation of parts—have been subtracted. The complex "threading" of the dancers' bodies into their own negative spaces creates visual conundrums that defy the apparent logic of the situation. The title is a play on words that, like the human situation it describes, threads two languages together: the English word "align", which sounds like the German word "allein" (alone), is fused with the German word "Einigung" (agreement).