William Forsythe - Koninklijk Ballet van Vlaanderen

'Impressing the Czar', the masterpiece that choreographer William Forsythe created for his company Ballett Frankfurt, had its première in 1988. In this interpretation by the Koninklijk Ballet van Vlaanderen, this dazzling show is finally coming to deSingel, seventeen years after it was first created. This five-act ballet is known as one of Forsythe's key works, in which he comments on the medium itself through and in the dance. It is an abundant piece, with a great variety of genres and styles, ranging from ballet on points to breakdance, with dazzling feats of superb dance technique alongside hilarious spoken passages, phantasmagorical scenes and burlesque round-dance persiflage. The aim is to disrupt the established patterns of a performance and go against the expectations of the audience in a wild rush of theatrical imagination. The piece is a wild and witty parody of classical ballet as it used to be performed at the court of the czars.