Review: You Made Me a Monster by William Forsythe

The power of our senses to influence every emotion and reaction that our mind and bodies have will never cease to amaze me. I experienced this amazement of mine once more a few weeks ago when I attended William Forsythe’s work “You Made Me A Monster”. Picture the following: The Baryshnikov Arts Center (if you have ever been there), 4th floor. You walk into a rectangular room, approximately 800 square feet. On your left you have a long table with sound and lighting. To the right you have a large dark screen that covers the entire wall. In the middle of the room about 8 tables all equipped with paper skeleton pieces, 8.5 X 11 Xerox paper, pins, clips and pencils. Standing on each table are about 4-5 aluminum stems going upright about 3 feet. No seating. You walk in with everyone else who expected to be assigned a seat and are instead escorted to a table. You are then given instructions to start hanging the skeletons on the stems any-which way you want. With a bright light shinning over the table you are then asked to trace on the paper the shapes and lines you see when placing the paper under skeleton sculptures. This is where we see in part the audience as the choreographer.

As a member of the audience it was very difficult to be in the room that night. “You Made Me A Monster” is a piece that was created by Bill Forsythe for his late wife who passed away of cancer. In a dialogue with Toni Morrison before the piece he explained that it could have been inspired by a moment he had with an acquaintance that offered his late wife, before she passed away, a build-it-yourself skeleton. This piece is his reaction to that very disturbing gift and its giver. As I said it was difficult to be in the room that night. I recently saw an episode of a prominent American television show where one of the main characters is at a performance of Yo-Yo Ma playing Bach’s first Cello Suite. Suddenly the character whose name is Josh in the show, starts to feel very tense and has trouble breathing and sitting still. He is basically having a serious panic attack. Over the course of the episode we learn that his odd reaction to the cello suite is actually a sub conscious reaction to a shooting a few months before where he was shot and almost died. Basically what the writers were saying was that the music had triggered memories and feelings that he might have had repressed since he was shot and in the hospital. In other words, Music = Emotion. In the case of “You Made Me A Monster” its not only the sounds we heard that triggered certain uncomfortable feelings we had when experiencing it (I believe I did catch a person who had to take a breather at one point) but the movement we saw and the general environment and surroundings made me feel a little panicked and anxious. At one point I even had trouble breathing at a normal pace.

“You Made Me A Monster” is a piece that is a combination of Bill’s style of choreography and a reaction to the audience and their creations. The dancers’ (there were only three) movements were all based on the shapes of the skeletons we constructed and the drawings that we traced. What I found amazing though wasn’t necessarily the choreography, the sounds or even the fact that we were involved in the “creation” of this piece but the effect that all those pieces combined had on the audience. I, like many others, walked out of that room practically traumatized and if a piece of art can have that much of an effect on a person then as far as I’m concerned its brilliant. Bill is a genius, that has already been proven and recognized time and time again but what makes him so brilliant in the field of dance and ballet, and well in any other, is that he isn’t afraid to step out of the box. Bravo Mr. Forsythe.