ABSTRACT
The choreographic work of William Forsythe enables an extended reflection on writing, language, and movement under the auspices of his reinterpretation of ballet. Here, I take up this reflection from the Foucauldian perspective of inscription as a disciplinary phenomenon. The question of how inscription operates in the rhetoric of Forsythe and Foucault reveals, however, significant differences pointing to the fact that even as Foucauldian a choreographer as Forsythe is must still be read on his own terms. This could be an antidote to the way Foucault’s influence over Dance Studies has tended to be in itself disciplinary. Ultimately, the asymmetry between practice and theory leads to a potential rereading of Foucault. In sum, Forsythe as reader of Foucault; Forsythe as enabling us to read Foucault differently, and thus a “double séance” around dance and text, again.
The historical moment of the disciplines was the moment when an art of the human body was born …
(Foucault: Discipline and Punish: 137–138)