Abstract

The film From a Classical Position (1997) is a fully collaborative work between a notable dancer and performer and a notable choreographer, being danced, directed and edited by Dana Caspersen and William Forsythe of the late Ballett Frankfurt. By looking at closely at the film, its origins and its process of creation, we gain an understanding of Caspersen and Forsythe's way of collaborating and their interest in working with other media and formats. Uncompromising if not difficult for a general dance audience, it is also somewhat didactic and offers insights into some of the Ballett Frankfurt's methods of generating movement, choreographic structures an the importance of classical technique to a distinct movement vocabulary.