William Forsythe Invites Museum Visitors to Dance With Art

Movement replaces distance in an exhibition without passive spectators.

WASSENAAR, Netherlands | June 2026

Visitors to Museum Voorlinden are being encouraged to abandon one of the most familiar rules of the museum world: do not touch. In Choreographic Objects, internationally renowned choreographer William Forsythe presents large-scale installations, sculptures and films designed to be experienced through physical participation. The exhibition transforms movement into the primary language through which the public encounters art. Instead of observing choreography from a seat, visitors generate it with their own bodies.

The exhibition brings together works developed through Forsythe’s long investigation of how choreography can exist beyond the traditional stage. He describes the project as an extension of his choreographic practice rather than a departure from dance. Each object establishes a situation, proposes a physical problem or encourages a specific response. The visitor becomes both performer and interpreter.

Forsythe’s central idea is that choreography does not require professional dancers, music or a theater. It can emerge whenever movement is organized by space, objects, instructions or limitations. A suspended element may force someone to change direction, while a narrow route may alter balance and speed. The artwork is not complete until a person enters the conditions it creates.

That principle changes the usual relationship between museums and their audiences. Traditional exhibitions often place a clear boundary between the protected object and the viewer. Visitors are expected to look carefully while maintaining physical distance. Forsythe replaces that separation with participation, making touch, hesitation, balance and reaction part of the artistic experience.

The choreographer has described the body as a thinking instrument. In this context, movement becomes a method of understanding rather than merely a decorative performance. A visitor discovers the dimensions, resistance and rhythm of an installation by responding to it physically. Knowledge appears through action before it is translated into words.

The exhibition is also structured around unpredictability. Forsythe acknowledges that audiences do not respond uniformly to the same object. Some people move cautiously, others immediately experiment, and many observe before deciding whether to participate. Personality becomes visible through the choices each visitor makes inside the work.

This uncertainty is fundamental to the exhibition rather than a problem requiring correction. The installations establish conditions, but they do not prescribe a single perfect sequence. Each participant creates an individual choreography through decisions, mistakes and adjustments. No two encounters are exactly the same because every body brings different abilities, confidence and experience.

One of Forsythe’s best-known works, Nowhere and Everywhere at the Same Time, uses hundreds of suspended pendulums moving through space. Participants must navigate between them without being struck, constantly changing direction and calculating timing. The installation converts an ordinary act of walking into an exercise involving attention, anticipation and improvisation. A gallery becomes a shifting field through which movement must be negotiated.

Other works use kinetic sculptures, projected images and architectural structures to stimulate physical responses. Instructions placed near some installations invite visitors to perform specific actions or explore unusual patterns. The language may appear simple, but the body often discovers unexpected difficulty in carrying it out. A small change in balance or rhythm can reveal how deeply habitual most movement has become.

The exhibition does not require everyone to participate. Visitors may experience the works visually or watch how other people respond. Observation itself becomes part of the choreography because the audience studies bodies solving physical problems in real time. The distinction between performer and spectator remains flexible throughout the galleries.

Museum Voorlinden has prepared specialized staff to support the interactive experience. Hosts with backgrounds in dance, theater and performing arts guide visitors, explain the origins of the installations and encourage safe participation. Their role is not to teach fixed routines, but to help people understand the possibilities created by each work. They also manage movement so that participation remains accessible without compromising safety.

The exhibition includes physical challenges, and visitors are advised to proceed at their own pace. Interaction remains voluntary and depends on individual mobility, comfort and health. This approach recognizes that participation does not need to look the same for everyone. A gesture, a change of position or sustained observation may each provide a valid encounter.

Forsythe began developing what he calls choreographic objects during the late twentieth century, alongside his influential work in ballet and experimental dance. His career reshaped classical movement by questioning established structures and expanding the vocabulary available to dancers. Rather than rejecting ballet, he examined its underlying systems and demonstrated how they could generate new possibilities. The installations apply that same investigative approach to ordinary bodies.

His work has repeatedly crossed the boundaries between dance, sculpture, film and architecture. Choreography becomes a way of organizing attention as much as movement. The public is asked to consider how space influences behavior and how objects quietly direct the body. Everyday environments already contain choreographic instructions through stairs, doors, furniture and pathways.

The Voorlinden exhibition makes those invisible instructions more apparent. Visitors may notice how quickly they adapt when an object interrupts a familiar route or challenges their balance. Their bodies calculate distance and timing before conscious analysis begins. Forsythe turns these automatic processes into the subject of the artwork.

The experience can also produce a degree of vulnerability. Adults accustomed to controlled public behavior may suddenly find themselves jumping, bending or moving awkwardly in front of strangers. That discomfort is part of the exhibition’s social dimension. Participation requires surrendering some concern about appearing graceful or correct.

At the same time, the works often generate playfulness. Museums can be associated with silence, restraint and reverence, but Forsythe introduces experimentation and shared amusement. Strangers watch one another, learn from previous attempts and occasionally develop spontaneous cooperation. The gallery becomes a temporary community organized around movement.

This participatory model raises questions about where an artwork actually resides. It may exist partly in the physical installation, partly in Forsythe’s instructions and partly in the visitor’s response. Without movement, the object remains a potential choreography rather than a completed event. The audience therefore does not simply consume the work but activates it.

Choreographic Objects can be visited at Museum Voorlinden until August 23, 2026. The exhibition demonstrates that contemporary art does not always demand interpretation from a distance. Sometimes its meaning emerges through muscles, balance and spatial awareness. Forsythe’s invitation is simple but radical: enter the work, allow the body to think and discover the choreography already present in movement.

Art changes when the audience becomes part of its motion. / El arte cambia cuando el público se convierte en parte de su movimiento.