William Forsythe, the bad boy of ballet, has been blasting away at the boundaries of classical technique for decades. Though he is a native New Yorker, he made his reputation across the Atlantic by exploding theatrical traditions and staging his works everywhere from Europe’s grandest opera houses to street car repair stations.

Like Twyla Tharp, his American counterpart in contemporary dance, Mr. Forsythe attracts legions of fans eager to sample his latest creation. But while Ms.Tharp’s vernacular tends to draw from Americana, Mr. Forsythe’s work has a European aura, which will be convincingly apparent tomorrow night when his two-hour work, “Kammer/Kammer,” has its American premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

The performances will introduce the choreographer’s eponymous new company, whose members include the best of the Frankfurt Ballet. During his 20-year tenure as the Frankfurt troupe’s artistic director and choreographer, Mr. Forsythe transformed it from a staid opera-ballet ensemble to the foremost contemporary dance company in Europe. But in 2002, the city of Frankfurt slashed his budget, making it impossible for him to continue. Even before the curtain came down on the Frankfurt Ballet, in July 2004, the Forsythe Company was in place with private funds and home venues in Dresden and Frankfurt.

Mr. Forsythe’s ballets are as inscrutable and as fascinating as the titles he assigns to them – “In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated,” “Second Details,” or “(N.N.N.N).” At times, he has been accused of deconstructing ballet beyond recognition – twisting torsos, hyper-extending limbs, spiraling bodies like gyros, and undulating them as if reflected in a fun-house mirror – all executed at warp speed or in slow motion. Yet his brainy, tensile-strength dancers make it all look fluent and intelligent.

Now 56 years old, Mr. Forsythe had a fairly conventional and solid ballet education. He studied with Maggie Black and Finis Jhung at the Joffrey Ballet School and danced with the Joffrey Company from 1971 to 1973 before moving to Germany and joining the Stuttgart Ballet at age 23. In 1976, he scored his first choreographic hit with “Urlicht,” created to Mahler’s music. Balanchine-style speed, angularity, and aerodynamic movement heavily influenced his early works. Mr. Forsythe achieved near-instant success, and in 1976 he became resident choreographer at the Stuttgart Ballet. He then moved on to the Frankfurt Ballet, in 1984, as artistic director and choreographer.

His approach to dance is sometimes best articulated by his dancers. One of Mr. Forsythe’s extraordinary ballerinas, Jill Johnson, has been working with him for 17 years and now stages his ballets internationally. She was introduced to his work when he came to National Ballet of Canada to stage “Second Details” and chose her, a soloist at the time, to dance in it.”There was an amazing amount of curiosity, an equal challenge between the cerebral and visceral.The mind inspires what the body does and vice versa,” she told The New York Sun in an interview.

Recently, Ms.Johnson staged Mr.Forsythe’s “workwithinwork” for American Ballet Theatre. This piece pulled, arched, and stretched the dancers nearly beyond their limits, and demanded the utmost agility and musicality. The women wore pointe shoes, but their feet were as pliable as paintbrushes tracing shapes on the floor. They seldom danced “on their legs,” as is customary in ballet.And a dynamically confrontational pas de deux – between Marcelo Gomes and Paloma Herrera – showed a new dimension in the dancers.

Mr. Forsythe’s work has increasingly progressed into multimedia and dance-theater territory. In “Kammer,” which means “room” in German, he capitalized on the extraordinary acting skills of two gifted dancers, Dana Caspersen and Antony Rizzi. They narrate, act, and dance, accompanied by the ensemble, two tales of unraveling love affairs. The musical range in this work – from Bach and von Beiber to the jagged strains of Thom Willems – signals the demise of the relation ships as the dancing escalates from mundane and moody to manic and back again.

The scripts are based on two separate texts: Anne Carson’s “Irony Is Not Enough: Essay on My Life as Catherine Deneuve,” in which a university professor imagines herself as Ms. Deneuve and falls for one of her students; and Douglas Martin’s “Outline of My Lover” which focuses on a young man who is the lover of an older rock star. “Kammer” was originally created with Frankfurt Ballet’s 36 dancers when it was given its premiere in December 2000, but has been restaged for the new 18-member ensemble.

BAM’s spacious Howard Gilman Opera House, where Mr. Forsythe has returned for numerous New Wave Festival engagements (the last in October 2003, when he was still with the Frankfurt Ballet) is ideally suited for “Kammer’s” expansive production requirements. Live action onstage is filmed by roaming cameramen and simulcast on giant television monitors stationed around the stage.

It may look random, but Mr. Forsythe has been known to program his ballets with algorithmic precision. Movable panels, manipulated and positioned by dancers, provide flexible setups that become ballet studios, classrooms, or various hotel rooms with bare mattresses where much of the action takes place. Duets, trios, and even group encounters are danced on and around the mattresses with amazing agility.

Spectators have the option to follow the live action onstage, which during the course of the ballet becomes partially hidden by strategically spaced panels, or to watch the monitors that record the drama behind the scenes and provide voyeuristic peeks at the proceedings. How you watch it is up to you. But to disclose more of “Kammer” would spoil the surprise of a Forsythe cliffhanger.

Until May 6, at BAM Howard Gilman Opera House (Brooklyn Academy of Music, 718-636-4100).