Why is the classically pure Kirov Ballet turning to a maverick like William Forsythe? “The Kirov has already added works to its repertory by the St Petersburg-born George Balanchine, who died in 1983, but Forsythe’s work, with its conscious deconstruction of the ballet conventions held so sacred at the Kirov, is a much wilder departure. It was the Kirov who courted Forsythe, rather than the other way round, and it took some persuasion. Forsythe has said that traditionally trained dancers, unused to his work, can be “horrible to watch” in his pieces.”