Photo: Jorg Baumann.
There have been intriguing glimpses of Crystal Pite’s work in and around New York in recent years, but the Canadian choreographer’s own company will be making its local debut next week. Founded in Vancouver as Kidd Pivot 10 years ago, the troupe became Kidd Pivot Frankfurt RM when it received a three-year residency in that Germany city.
Pite’s work blends rigorous precision with fluidity to create hauntingly dramatic, piercingly emotional works. Contemporary sound scores and intricate—often unsettling—lighting are essential components of her work, and her dancers perform with notable daring and spontaneity.
She has been particularly busy of late while enjoying motherhood, having given birth to a son 14 months ago. Her latest Kidd Pivot work had its premiere in October. She was in New York, baby in tow, to create Grace Engine, which Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet recently premiered while on tour in France. Last week, the Nederlands Dans Theater, where she is an associate choreographer, premiered her Solo Echo.
Pite found time for an interview a few days after that, speaking by phone from The Hague. Her company was in Rome performing her 2009 work Dark Matters, the work that preceded The You Show, which it brings to the Baryshnikov Arts Center next week. She discussed her use of improvisation, which plays a vital role in her creative process.
“We use it as a tool to find new ways of moving. We work with a particular idea, turn that into choreography—or it may remain as improvisation, with certain parameters and structures. I use it because it creates a certain complexity. I like to leave space for the unknown in the performance. It’s healthy for the dancers; they have the ability to respond in the moment.
“Choreography is repeatable, refinable—it’s about achieving certain tasks,” she continued. “Improvisation is more instinctive and free, spontaneous. I think it’s nice to have a mix of the two. The You Show has very little improvisation in the finished piece. I used a lot of improv when I first created it, but as we started to perform it, that improv became more consistent, and now it’s pretty set. It was great to let the piece evolve through improv.”
The You Show is in four sections with an intermission. Like Dark Matters, seen in 2010 at Peak Performances in Montclair, N.J., and last summer at Jacob’s Pillow, it is a substantial, highly refined work in which theatrical elements play a crucial role. Situations feel dire; a lot seems to be at stake.
“Dark Matters has a particular kind of narrative idea, though it’s not telling one particular story,” Pite said. “The You Show is much more intimate. It deals with ways of looking at love, confrontation and loss. Each duet is a world unto itself; the performers are completely responsible for the world they inhabit. The emotion portrayed is quite epic. We work toward the superhuman.”
Pite danced with Ballet British Columbia for eight years, then was a member of William Forsythe’s Ballet Frankfurt from 1996–2001. That influential American-born choreographer, whose company is now based in Dresden, has been “a really great creative force in my life,” Pite acknowledged.
“I learned so much from his works, from his use of improvisation as a tool to create the work—but also as an aspect of performance. I loved his willingness to take a risk and to destroy his work, let it go, allow it to explode, implode, change, dissolve, whatever was needed in the process. I became aware those possibilities are there from watching him negotiate that, seeing what it can produce. I’m not always able to achieve [that] in my own process—the tension between risk and rigor or detail. I always try to find a good balance between the two.”
Her company is now based in the same city where Forsythe had his for many years. Kidd Pivot was invited to become the resident company at Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, an arrangement made possible by Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain (hence the “RM”).
“The Frankfurt organization is very open-minded and generous. The residency offered a big infusion of cash and provided the ability to work year-round. It became possible to have seven full-time dancers. We can afford to tour more, have longer creative periods. Before Frankfurt, we worked project to project, had a fraction of the funding. There was a lot of scrambling and inconsistency, negotiating schedules.”
Kidd Pivot retains a strong connection with Vancouver; its administrative staff is based there, as are many of Pite’s collaborators. “We’re on tour most of the year. Home is a strange concept right now.”
The You Show
Feb. 23 & 24, Jerome Robbins Theater at Baryshnikov Arts Center, 450 W. 37th St. (betw. 9th & 10th Aves.), www.bacnyc.org; 8 p.m., $25.
