Fitting In: The World Around Him

In Forsythe’s time period, much emphasis was being placed on racial equality (as well as women’s rights and the acceptance of homosexuality). This is expressed in Gabriele Brandstetter's article "Defigurative Choreography: From Marcel Duchamp to William Forsythe." “Forsythe plays with such perceptual phenomena: The sentence “Everything is all right,” spoken by a black dancer, gradually spills into a narration of catastrophes, while the group of dancers synchronously translates the word “right” spatially by dancing on the “right side.” That it is a black dancer is significant, since Forsythe is choreographically critiquing the polarization of the political left and right as well as those who claim to know what should and shouldn’t be considered “politically correct.” The spectator is faced with the question: Who stands or moves on the right side of which text? The words displace the figures, and the figures the words.”
Postmodern structures were breaking through in architecture, which Forsythe studied and alluded to in his performance programs, such as in the performance of his work Artifact. It is this study of architecture that explains his use of lines and points as well as distortions of shapes in his movements, which he emphasizes in his improvisation techniques.
	Forsythe also used the changes occurring in the dance world to influence not only the style but the subject matter of his work. Having worked with Balanchine, he continued to use dancers with great amounts of flexibility and choreographed the movements to be constantly pulling off center. He constantly looked for ways to distort classical movements in his creations. In his piece In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated, he also related the growing competition in the dance world that has evolved.