posted February 18, 2002 15:40            

With a choreographer of Forsythe's stature, a new work which merely collects the leftovers of something found and developed earlier and collates them in a new way takes on a semblance of audacity, even genius. But it appears that only other ensembles (like the Paris troupe) or unusual venues (like the remodeled former streetcar depot of the TAT theater in Frankfurt's Bockenheim district) provide Forsythe's choreographies with the inspiration for new structures and forms. One is tempted to say that, with the material developed for the Frankfurt opera house, Forsythe has been treading on the spot for some time.

posted May 11, 2002 23:46            

A Quest for Absolute Zero
By Jochen Schmidt in The Frankfurter Allgemeine

FRANKFURT. No choreographer has shown more stamina in grappling with a historical personality than William Forsythe in his treatment of Robert Falcon Scott. In 1912 Scott, the English polar explorer, was beaten to the South Pole by his Norwegian rival Roald Amundsen, and then perished together with his entire team on the way back. The three-part evening entitled "The Scott Work/2002," recently staged by Forsythe's Ballet Frankfurt in the city's Bockenheimer Depot theater, must already be the fifth occasion that the American choreographer has tackled the subject, and an ending is not yet in sight.

posted May 21, 2002 02:15            

FRANKFURT. It is no secret that the dreadful state of cultural affairs in Frankfurt stems from a failure by city officials responsible for the arts to decide on the kind of culture they would like to see in this poor, rich metropolis.

In this regard, Frankfurt has come to resemble other fundamentally rich yet penniless German cities like Hamburg or Berlin or Bremen that have been left to fend for themselves in a financial crisis that, theatrically speaking, leaves officials to play the role of city-state administrators, but unable to pay for the arts -- even they wanted to. In those places, the inability or unwillingness to decide what kind of theater to finance goes by high-flying names such as "arrogance" (Hamburg), "indolence" (Berlin) or "ignorance" (Bremen).

In Frankfurt, all you need to know is the three letters TAT. They stand for Theater am Turm, the "theater at the tower."