Shapeshifters and Colombe’s Folds

Abstract

The collaboration between William Forsythe and Issey Miyake in Ballett Frankfurt’s The Loss of Small Detail (1991) includes the Colombe dress, used in the finale of the first act, “the second detail.” If seen as a parallel choreographic object in Forsythe’s work, Miyake’s Colombe as “one piece of cloth” concept suggests the fold (Deleuze, 1993) as a potent epistemological principle that unites various versions of the work. Used in the solo dance that bridges two acts, the Colombe dress via the figure of fold visually hints at Forsythe’s choreographic gestures that open out balletic épaulement through “disfocus.” When Miyake’s and Forsythe’s topological gestures are juxtaposed, their discrete works reveal analogous shapeshifting that promotes multidirectional links between ballet and fashion as artistic forms that use historical and cultural frictions to fold into contemporaneity.