Canada’s most acclaimed choreographer, Crystal Pite’s brand new work for The National Ballet of Canada, Angels’ Atlas, has its world premiere February 29, and is already being lauded as a “masterpiece.” (Ludwig van Toronto). The Globe and Mail says it: “brings a glimpse into the infinite….”
To see inspiring NEW video of the piece, click here
And for video of Pite in rehearsal with The National Ballet of Canada, click here.
Crystal Pite’s “Angels’ Atlas”, The National Ballet of Canada
Pite herself says: “There is a feeling in me of leaning into those questions, questions about love, and death, and infinity…. I like to think of body as being a location, a place where being is held and shaped, and in this way dancing can give form to the unknown – in the dancing body the unknown appears as something both familiar and extraordinary… you might catch a glimpse of something eternal. But both the dancers and the dancing are temporary, and I think their beauty resonates with me because of their impermanence…. I like working in a form that’s always disappearing. Our lives and our dances are always built in relationship to time, and by extension, mortality. I would like to… speak about our ephemerality, and at the same time, voice our defiance.”
A former dancer with Ballet BC and Ballett Frankfurt under William Forsythe, Crystal Pite is now Associate Choreographer of Nederlands Dans Theater, Associate Dance Artist of Canada’s National Arts Centre, and Associate Artist at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London. Her company, Kidd Pivot, performs her original creations around the world.
In September 2019, The Guardian named Pite’s Betroffenheit, a co-creation with playwright and actor Jonathon Young, the best dance show so far of the 21st century, praising it as a powerful study of grief and trauma.
The Olivier Award-winning choreographer created her first work for The National Ballet of Canada, Emergence, in 2009 as part of the Innovation programme featuring all Canadian choreographers. An instant success, Emergence swept the Dora Mavor Moore Awards that year, winning all four dance categories for Production, New Choreography, Sound Design and Performance.