Crystal Pite: 'The most exciting choreographer on the planet'

Advertorial Mysterious shadows. Puppets controlled by dozens of invisible hands and music that emphasises the very silence. An evening with Crystal Pite is an adventurous journey into the unknown regions of our imagination. On 7 February 2013 the Nederlands Dans Theater two pieces by this Canadian choreographer: a reprise of the 2008 piece Frontier and a new work entitled Parade. The premiere will be screened simultaneously on 700 cinema screens worldwide.

Crystal Pite has been with Nederlands Dans Theater since 2005 and has worked there as its resident choreographer since 2008. Internationally, she is best known for her own company, Kidd Pivot. Does it still matter to Pite whether she works with her own company or for NDT?

"I can put less time into a production here than when working with my own company. But I love the energy that meeting new dancers gives me: you have to discover quickly what they can do, and I have to learn how to tap into their talents. At Nederlands Dans Theater, there is an enormous amount of talent and it is bursting with creativity. It is true that I can work faster with my own dancers and have more room to invent new things, but that is logical because we have been working together for so many years and feel each other seamlessly. NDT does have a special position for me, because by now I have also been working here since 2005. I have worked with some of the dancers many times."

Seizing the opportunity to fill an entire evening at NDT, the 42-year-old choreographer presented a double programme: "I can now show a revival of my 2008 piece 'Frontier'. That serves as a benchmark. Before that, I am showing a new work titled 'Parade', which stands as a kind of counterpoint to the older work. They are very different, but they also have certain common motifs."

In Pite's work, these motifs always have to do with the invisible. In all her work, Pite shows a fascination with concepts like 'Dark Matter' and 'Terra Incognita'. It has already earned her the name of 'most exciting choreographer on the planet' in her homeland: "It is wonderful that scientists use these words to describe that there is still so much that we don't know. In doing so, science touches art."

The theme of 'dark matter' is elaborated in 'Frontier' in the form of puppeteers engaging in a game of shadows and shadows with the dancers and some puppets. In 'Parade', Pite takes it a step further: "This piece involves a parade of clowns and a brass band. For me, it is a good representation of imagination, of absurdity and of rituals. The interplay between the disorganised clowns and the tight marching of the brass band depicts the tension between instinct and intellect, between the rational and the irrational and the unconscious and the conscious."

Unlike in 'Frontier', where the puppeteer plays a central role, in 'Parade' Pite introduces the very invisible puppeteer: "I have already used that puppeteer figure in four previous works. I remain fascinated by the meaning of the puppeteer, and his way of working. Now I want the puppeteer to be invisible, and the audience to watch only the puppets."

The fact that the premiere on 7 February will be simultaneously broadcast live in 700 cinemas worldwide does not make the choreographer extra tense now. Nor has she especially adapted her work to the demands of new media, but she says she doesn't need to: "I work for the theatre, not for the cinema."

 

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