Nowhere And Everywhere At The Same Time No.2

Now this is an unexpected offering from Berklee: the revised version of William Forsythe’s Nowhere And Everywhere At The Same Time, a kind of DIY performance piece that encourages you to experience space, movement, other people, the absence of other people …

The original version was a dance piece created at Tate Modern in 2009, devised by the eminent choreographer and performed by the dancers of his company. The Tate’s Turbine Hall was filled with dozens of metal pendulums suspended from wire rope; the dancers used the pendulums as catalysts for movement, their bodies reacting to the objects, and each other, as they moved through the field. Forsythe has commented that the work’s choreography is “based on observations; so the dancers are observing the room, observing each other, and producing conclusions or expressing their observations”. By conceiving the Turbine Hall as both ‘nowhere and everywhere at the same time’, this performance sought to unleash the kinetic and metaphorical potentials of the space.

The No.2 version does not involve a specific choreography or indeed dancers as such. The field of moving pendulums is retained, and visitors are invited to move through them at will. In doing so, they effectively generate an infinite range of individual choreographies. As the Berklee puts it, “The spectators are free to attempt navigation in this statistically unpredictable environment but are requested to avoid coming in contact with any of the swinging pendulums. This task, which automatically initiates and alerts the spectator’s innate predictive faculties, produces a lively choreography of manifold and intricate avoidance strategies …”

The piece is accompanied by two of Forsythe’s short films. Solo (1997) is a performance for the camera by Forsythe himself that has close-ups and rapid cuts of his twisting body contrasted with overhead shots that capture his movements across a starkly lit stage. Antipodes I/II (2006) consists of two videos shown on facing screens suspended at different heights; on the raised screen, Forsythe attempts to hold on to a table attached to the ceiling, while in the second video he moves between two tables resting on the floor. The result, which apparently dramatises Forsythe’s childhood belief that someone traveling to the South Pole risked falling off the planet, subverts the relationship between embodiment and gravity.

Should be fun. The performance/installation/movement piece is open between 8 November and 18 December; you need to book a one-hour time slot between 10am and 8pm (there is a maximum of 50 people per time slot so you should get the one you want).