About the artists

Ryan, Caspersen and Forsythe. Photograph by Sarah Ainslie

Dana Caspersen was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and subsequently trained with a variety of people including Maggie Black and Erik Hawkins. She danced with the North Carolina Dance Theater before joining Ballett Frankfurt in 1988 and then later the Forsythe Company in 2005. In her numerous collaborations with William Forsythe, she has worked as a dancer, actress, author and choreographer. As a choreographer she has also undertaken commissions from Sylvie Guillem, Klapstuck Festival, Ballett Frankfurt, Korzo Theater, Artangel and Channel 4.

William Forsythe founded The Forsythe Company in 2004 and is internationally recognized as one of the world’s foremost choreographers. In addition to his project with Artangel, Forsythe has been commissioned to produce architectural and performance installations by Daniel Libeskind, Creative Time and the City of Paris. His installation and films have been exhibited at the Whitney Biennial, the Venice Biennale and the Louvre Museum and Forsythe and his ensembles have received awards including the New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award and the Laurence Olivier Award. Forsythe has been conveyed the title of Commandeur des Arts et Lettres (1999) by the government of France and has received the German Distinguished Service Cross (1997) and the Wexner Prize (2002).

Joel Ryan was educated in physics and philosophy at The Claremont Colleges and the University of California. He then went on to study music technology at Stanford University and joined the Mills College Center for Contemporary Music. He a pioneer in the design of musical instruments based on real time digital signal processing and has collaborated extensively with composers and artists including George Lewis, Steina and Woody Vasulka, Malcolm Goldstein, Michel Waisvisz and Evan Parker. Formerly a Research Associate at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories of the Univesity of California, he has taught philosophy, physics and mathematics and now works at STEIM in Amsterdam.