Renowned choreographer sets sail with Shakespeare
As happens to the best of us it was the spectacle that first grabbed Crystal Pite.
The internationally lauded choreographer and founder of Kidd Pivot was looking for a text that she could base her company’s next creation on. “I knew that I wanted to work with story and I knew that I wanted to work with an existing script” says Pite. “I’d worked with narrative a lot in my prior work but I hadn’t worked with an existing script so I set that out as a task for myself.”
It’s a taller order than it sounds. With Kidd Pivot’s stellar reputation based on work that combines manifold dance styles and multiple design elements into works of flawless and forthright dance theatre the story needed to provide strong launching points for a variety of disciplines — and Pite had to like it.
“When I make a piece I have to live with the content for a long time. I have to create the piece but then I often tour the work for four or five years afterwards so whatever it is I have to be really drawn to it; it has to resonate with me.”
Although she was first attracted to the aesthetic of film noir the narratives of the genre failed to keep her interest.
“Those stories were leaving me cold” she says. “I had to find something a bit more lofty in its intent.”
But then — a shipwreck!
Pite was reading acclaimed director Peter Brook’s book on theatre The Open Door and came upon a chapter that discussed his production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest .
“I became quite attached to the idea of shipwreck” says Pite. “I had some initial really really strong images and connections to that word and that idea and I was very excited about how to transpose the idea of the shipwreck onto the body or onto the stage.”
She took the idea to her Kidd Pivot collaborators — an impressive list of design luminaries — and it gelled.
“One of the sound designers for this production Meg Roe had directed The Tempest the year before… and she was able to make a really compelling case for why I should work with it. Ultimately it was Meg who convinced me. I knew that because she was onboard for most of the creation I’d really be able to lean on her for dramaturgy.”
Pite also realized that it was a perfect match for her company. The seven dancers of Kidd Pivot selected for their versatility creativity and technique were exactly the number required by the script. “Purely by chance I happened to have five men and two women in my company. It was an amazing fit.”
And most importantly for Pite “I really connected with the higher themes of the play which were about love and forgiveness versus revenge and ambition.
“I thought that was a really interesting theme especially at this time in my life [two years ago] when I’d just become a mother and I had all these questions about reconciling my art with my family” she says.
The reconciliation seems to have been a fruitful one. Premièring in Frankfurt Germany where Kidd Pivot had just completed a three-year residency The Tempest Replica has seen many ports of call during its year of highly acclaimed global touring.
While Pite acknowledges that the recognition has meant “a lot more activity a lot more gigs” for the company she is also looking forward to an opportunity to recharge. As the winner of the inaugural Lola Award for dance she will be using those funds to take a year off. “It’s a badly needed break. I’ve been going pretty hard for the past 10 years and I felt like it was a good moment to take a look back and figure out what comes next…. Figure out what I want to do and then figure out what I need to learn in order to do it.”
Provisions for the next voyage if you will.
