Portrait of choreographer and artistic director, Crystal Pite. Copyright unknown.
Today is World Ballet Day (1st November 2024), so in the spirit of gravity-defying dance, I’d like to share some reflections on the visionary choreographer and artistic director Crystal Pite. Regarded as one of the most innovative dance artists of our time, Crystal first captured my attention in May 2019, when I saw Flight Pattern performed by The Royal Ballet. At the time, I was acting with the company in Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet, a classical story ballet created in 1965 and set to the spellbinding music of Sergei Prokofiev. This production embodies everything one expects in traditional ballet—pas de deux, tights, tiaras, pointe shoes, ornate sets, pantomime, and classical technique.
Seeing Flight Pattern in that context was a shock to my system. The dancers moved in a radically different style that I could hardly believe they were the same people. Dressed in muted grey tones, a huddled mass of thirty-six dancers moved as a single entity across the stage in constant, straining flux: heads lifting, necks rolling, bodies surging forward with raw, unfiltered humanity. It felt as if they had shed their classical forms, revealing something grounded and deeply personal. Since that very moment, I’ve been captivated by Crystal’s work and believe that her unique approach to creativity and movement has something truly inspiring to offer dancers and non-dancers alike.
Crystal Pite's contemporary ballet, Flight Pattern alongside Kenneth MacMillan's classical ballet, Romeo and Juliet.
Crystal Pite’s Artistic Journey
Born in British Columbia, Canada, in 1970, Crystal began creating choreography at the age of three. “Of course, I wouldn’t have known it was choreography at the time,” she says. “But when I think back, what I was doing was making up a dance to a specific song (Round and Round in My Little Red Wagon). I had a costume, practised endlessly, set up lighting, made event tickets, and invited people to watch. I had this clear sense of creating something repeatable and refining it, which is at the heart of choreography.”
Her professional career began as a dancer with Ballet British Columbia in 1988, before she joined William Forsythe’s Ballet Frankfurt. “I was incredibly lucky to work there,” she reflects. “Those five years felt like fifteen because each day was so rich with learning. One of the most transformative skills I gained was improvisation, which first drew me to Ballet Frankfurt and has remained central in my creative process.”
Crystal Pite in Vancouver's Queen Elizabeth Theatre in 2015. Photograph by Grant Harder.
In 2002, Crystal founded Kidd Pivot in Vancouver, a company known for its bold fusion of dance and theatre. Kidd Pivot, comprising just ten dancers, tours internationally with critically acclaimed productions, including the Olivier Award-winning Betroffenheit (2015), Revisor (2019), and Assembly Hall (2023). Reflecting on the name “Kidd Pivot,” Crystal explains that “pivot” signifies a precise, technical movement essential to her meticulous choreography, while “Kidd” conveys the spirit of an outlaw or prize-fighter, capturing the boldness and risk-taking that fuel her creativity. In her work, she says, she “strives to explore the tension between extremes—rigour and recklessness, intellect and instinct, tradition and innovation.”
Breaking Boundaries in Ballet
Last week at the Royal Opera House, I had the privilege of seeing Crystal’s The Statement, performed by the phenomenal Matthew Ball, Amelia Townsend, Joshua Junker, and Kristen McNally of The Royal Ballet. Presented as part of Encounters: Four Contemporary Ballets (running until 12th November 2024), this production features Crystal’s signature “lip-synced choreography”—a bold innovation that challenges the classical convention of ballet as a “silent art form.”
The Statement unfolds in a dimly lit, claustrophobic boardroom, where four characters are entangled in a web of escalating tension within a high-stakes corporate setting. In this oppressive shadow world, every word is “on the record” as the characters struggle under the merciless control of their unseen superiors “upstairs.” It’s a stark portrayal of individuals under intense pressure, grappling with power, deceit, accountability, and manipulation.
Clip from Crystal Pite's The Statement. Performed by Ashley Dean, Joseph Sissens, Kristen McNally and Calvin Richardson.
The lip-synced choreography is set to a voiceover written by actor and playwright Jonathan Young, with each movement punctuating the razor-sharp dialogue to create a dynamic physical language. Through highly exaggerated gestures, the dancers embody their characters’ fears, ambitions, and vulnerabilities, immersing the audience in the invisible forces binding them. It’s Crystal’s genius for seamlessly blending movement with text that transforms The Statement from a dance performance into an electrifying act of theatre.
For Crystal, choreographing movement to text is “very similar to choreographing to music.” The main difference, she explains, is that familiar human gestures or postures associated with specific phrases become the source material for each moment in the choreography. Her process distorts and amplifies everyday movements into almost surreal expressions, requiring millimetre-precision timing from the performers. “The dancers have to nail it, or the viewer gets split into seeing and hearing, the same way they would if a film is slightly out of sync with its sound.” I asked Amelia Townsend, who performs in the piece, what the secret was to perfecting this lip-sync technique. Her reply: “lots of practice!”
Stage photo from Crystal Pite's The Statement, featuring Kristen McNally and Calvin Richardson (2021).
However, it’s not just the physical choreography that the dancers need to master. In a Sadler’s Wells interview, Crystal explains, “The dancers have to wear the character’s voice and learn their lines, along with all the breathing in and breathing out, the little ‘isms’ and details.” Young adds, “The dancers also have to understand their thinking and motivation—who they are and why they say what they say. There’s that layer as well.” It’s a testament to the artistry of The Royal Ballet dancers that they can combine the acrobatic and psychological aspects of their roles with such finesse and conviction. Summarising this “lip-sync” technique, Crystal says, “We love doing it. It’s caused us to move in ways we wouldn’t otherwise, which I really love. It’s affected the choreography, the way we move, and it’s brought a layer of complexity and detail that I’m really enjoying."
A Balancing Act
Choreography is perhaps the most intimate and challenging of the creative arts, as the choreographer shapes ideas directly through a living interpreter—the dancer in the studio. Speaking with dancers from The Royal Ballet about their experience working with Crystal, it’s clear how much they relish the collaborative process. Isabella Gasparini, First Soloist of The Royal Ballet, shares her admiration, saying, “Ever since working with Crystal in Flight Pattern, I have been totally mesmerised by her vision, her artistry, her way of being.” Yet, for dancers who specialise in classical ballet, stepping into the unfamiliar world of contemporary dance can be a shock. Reflecting on this in her blog post Echoes of Love, Isabella describes her initial doubts before rehearsing Crystal’s Solo Echo and The Statement:
“The two pieces...were not created on us. They were both made for dancers of the Nederlands Dans Theater in 2012 and 2016, respectively. Watching them on video, I kept thinking, ‘How are we going to do this?’ Their quality of movement was unique, with just the right amount of effort, resistance, fluidity. We had a long way to go!”
Artists of The Royal Ballet (Isabella Gasparini centre) rehearsing Flight Pattern in 2019.
For a long time, Isabella admits, contemporary dance felt like an unfamiliar language. Her “nearly traumatising” experience performing a contemporary solo for a competition in Brazil led her to avoid the art form entirely. Upon joining The Royal Ballet in 2014, she initially focused on her strengths in classical ballet but soon realised that thriving at this elite level—where “the company did everything”—would mean embracing versatility and taking risks. “Moving beyond our comfort zone, we can really develop artistically and spiritually,” she says. “This is how I feel when working with Crystal and her team.” At the end of Isabella’s beautiful post, she shares part of the note that Crystal wrote for the dancers before their opening night of Solo Echo in 2021:
“My heartfelt wish is that you have a good adventure out there on stage—that you trust yourselves to dance right on your edge. That you feel beautifully and touchingly human in your effort and your vulnerability. That your dancing is a manifestation of your love for each other, and for life itself.”
Speaking about Crystal’s Light of Passage, which returns to The Royal Ballet stage in February 2025, Principal Dancer Matthew Ball notes that while “we dance a wide variety of repertoire here, I don’t think we’ve ever worked on something quite like this. She’s so focused on the craft and the process—her humble approach to the work speaks volumes about how important it is for her to create a great piece of theatre and a great piece of dance.”
Matthew Ball, Principal Dancer of The Royal Ballet, starring in Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake in 2018.
Matthew’s connection to contemporary dance began at 18 when he attended a summer intensive with Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT). At that time, he was in his final year at The Royal Ballet School and received an offer to join NDT as an apprentice. However, he ultimately chose to join The Royal Ballet, and now, at 30, he stands as one of the company’s leading stars. Interestingly, Crystal has been an associate choreographer with NDT since 2008, perhaps contributing to the affinity Matthew feels with her style. In an interview with Fidelio Cafe, Matthew reflects on the balancing act that defines his craft:
“We’re all the time trying to be spontaneous, instinctive, natural, and free when we get on stage, but in actual fact, we really need to also be disciplined every day to come in and practice our craft and work on all these varied elements, and have a kind of game plan for the future with a strong routine to stick to. These two sides are sometimes pulling us in different directions, which can feel like a real struggle, but more recently I’ve tried to think of it as an interesting play-off between the two—wherever you land within that space is part of what defines you as an artist.”
I hope this piece has offered some insight into the creative process of Crystal Pite and perhaps sparked curiosity about her upcoming productions at the Royal Opera House. If you can, I highly recommend seeing Light of Passage, which runs from 20th February to 12th March 2025. My focus has mainly been on her creations with The Royal Ballet, as I’ve been fortunate to see all their recent productions and speak to with the dancers performing in them. Crystal’s rare ability to translate raw human experience into movement invites audiences to reflect on life’s deeper currents.
Portrait of choreographer and artistic director, Crystal Pite. Copyright unknown.
As a parting toast to World Ballet Day 2024, I’ll leave you with words from Crystal herself, captured in a poem she wrote for International Dance Day in 2011—a powerful reminder of dance as a vital, living language:
You are dancers
All of you.
Life dances you.
To dance is to investigate and to celebrate
The experience of being alive.
Like life, dance creates and destroys itself in every moment.
Like love, it is beyond reason.
Ephemeral as breath,
Concrete as bone,
Dance is made of you.
You sculpt the space,
You write with your body
In a wordless language that is deeply understood.
You grace the space within and around you when you dance.
Force, trajectory, inertia and recovery.
Dancing is a ride.
A duet between your instinct and imagination.
To dance is to heighten your experience
Of the present moment.
Short dance film inspired by the artistry of Crystal Pite. Filmed and performed by Suleiman Suleiman.
Upcoming Crystal Pite productions:
Further insights into Crystal Pite and the art of ballet:
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