Factory International Hosts Crystal Pite and Simon McBurney

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Nederlands Dans Theater and Complicité  Figures in Extinction  Aviva Studios, Factory International, Manchester 21 Feb 2025, 19:30

I had been looking forward to a show like Nederlands Dans Theater's Figures in Extinction in Manchester's Factory International ever since 7 Dec 2014, when George Osborn announced a £78 million investment in a new arts venue for Manchester as part of the Coalition Government's Northern Powerhouse initiative (see Factory To Go Ahead  13 Jan 2017 and the posts linked to that article).   I had high hopes on 11 Dec 2014 when I wrote  Let's bring the Royal Ballet to The Factory, Manchester.  They were exceeded by the premiere of Requiem, the third part of Crystal Pite and Simon McBurney's collaboration at Factory International's Aviva Studios on 19 Feb 2025.

I attended the evening performance of Figures in Extinction on 21 Feb 2025.   It was my first visit to Factory International. According to Wikipedia, the venue can accommodate up to 7,000 people in its "5,000 flexible 'warehouse' space" and 2,000-seat auditorium.  There is no shortage of bars, merchandise outlets and other attractions to explore during intervals.  The show took place in the Avviva Studios auditorium.  Although I was in the back row, I had an excellent view of the stage, and the acoustics were excellent.   Even though my mobility is limited, I had no trouble accessing my seat.  There were plenty of lifts and escalators as well as helpful and courteous ushers.

Figures in Extinction started with the list or [1.0].  There was a dialogue on a screen between "Simon" and "Crystal", though I did not recognize the voices as those of McBurney and Pite. Dancers represented the animals, plants and glaciers that have disappeared as a result of climate change.  The animal that has stuck in my memory is the Pyrenean ibex with its distinctive curved horns.  The top photograph in  An Introduction to Figures in Extinction shows how the species was represented on stage.  A child asked plaintively whether the animals had gone away and whether any were ever coming back.   According to the online programme, the text was taken from Why Look at Animals? by John Berger.  The score was composed by Owen Belton, who has collaborated with Pite for many years.  There were also excerpts from Perfume Genius's Normal Song and Blick Bassy's Aké.   A flavour of the work can be savoured from NDT's YouTube video Figures in Extinction [1.0] - by Crystal Pite with Simon McBurney (NDT 1 | Dreams 360).

Figures in Extinction [2.0] but then it comes to the humans explored the possibility of the extinction of our species.  Suuited human beings in their offices were scrutinized just like the disappearing species in the list.   The music was by Benjamin Grant with fragments of Claude Debussy's La Mer, Dmitri Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony, Johan Sebastian Bach's Concerto for 2 Violins in D Minor, Nils Frahm's Less, Alfred Schnittke's Cello Sonata No. 1: I Largo, II Presto, Jim Perkins's The North Wind, Owen Belton's Extinction Crescendo and additional music by Josh Sneesby.   The work was inspired by Iain McGilchrist's The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, extracts of which were read during the performance.  Some idea of this part of the show can be obtained from the video Figures in Extinction [2.0] but then you come to the humans - Simon McBurney with Crystal Pite

For me, the most disturbing part of the show was Requiem.   A voice spoke about space and time and the relationship between the living and the dead.  It continued that the dead surround the living.   The dead experience timelessness, though, sometimes, so do the living in extreme circumstances, one of which could be dying.  There was a scene of a patient wired up on monitors.  A staff nurse and trainee changed the patient's bedding, almost manhandling him.  A family entered the patient's hospital room, squabbling with each other.  Somehow lifted the mood of an otherwise depressing theme was lifted by a luminous backdrop, a photograph of which appears in the online programme.   The score was by Owen Belton with fragments of Fauré and Mozart's Requiems as well as other works.   A sample of the piece is contained in Figures in Extinction [3.0] requiem,

This is a profound, multi-layered work which cannot be appreciated properly by watching a single performance  (if, indeed, any worthwhile show can).  Figures in Extinction will be performed at the Internationaal Theater in Amsterdam tonight, tomorrow and Saturday before proceeding to Helsinki in April and Luxembourg in June.  It is well worth seeing.

Scottish Ballet - Emergence and MC 14/22

Scottish Ballet Emergence

Photo Andy Ross
© 2017 Scottish Ballet: all rights reserved
Reproduced with kind permission of the company

Scottish Ballet, MC 14/22 (ceci est mon corps) and Emergence, Sadler's Wells. 10 June 2017, 19:30

I recently asked Christopher Hampson why he was content for Scottish Ballet to bring full-length ballets like his own Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel, Peter Darrell's The Nutcracker and David Dawson's Swan Lake that tour Scotland to the North of England but never to London.  He replied that he wanted the capital to see the sort of works that distinguish Scottish Ballet.

I did not understand his reply at first because it seemed to me that those ballets are flagship works. They attract crowds night after night in all the cities they visit. But then I reflected upon the history of Scottish Ballet. I reminded myself what it was like when I first knew it.  I think the first work I saw was Peter Darrell's Mods and Rockers which was performed to the music of The Beatles.  I also remember The Houseparty from the same era which was one of the first ballets to have been created especially for television. Scottish Ballet was known as Western Theatre Ballet in those days. It was not a national company nor even a regional one for the West of England. It attracted audiences because it was innovative and adventurous. One of its most daring early works (which I never saw because it was well before my time) was A Wedding Present.  According to the Peter Darrell Trust website, that work explored the impact on a marriage of a bridegroom's love for another man a full 5 years before the Sexual Offences Act 1967.  So it is entirely consistent with the company's tradition that it should bring to London in its diamond jubilee year works by Angelin Preljocaj and Crystal Pite.

Preljocaj's MC 14/22 (ceci est mon corps) came first.  I have not yet been able to work out the significance of "MC 14/22" but "ceci est mon corps" means "this is my body". They are the words that the vicar utters when distributing the host to his congregation at Holy Communion. Christians celebrate that sacrament in memory of Jesus's last supper with his disciples which most of us imagine from the painting in Milan by Leonardo da Vinci. That much was easy enough to follow because there were 12 dancers (though no Christ), a number of metal tables that were laid out as one long table at one point and a chant that sounded a little like Κύριε, ἐλέησον.

But this was in no sense a religious work.  The Kyrie was muffled and that muffling appeared to be paralleled later when one of the dancers used sticky tape to hobble the movements of another.  The programme describes the work as "a meeting of the spiritual and the carnal" and refers to the dancers as "Apostles of Movement". It opens with three dancers. One on stage left appearing to wash or massage the body of the other.  A third at stage right applying masking tape to the floor.  Slowly an image of bodies on tables begins to glow. The dancers, all male, appear on stage, one checking the body of the other. At various times they appear to fight.  At other times they show affection. Much of the action takes place in silence. The composer, Tedd Zahmal refers to his work as a "soundscape" rather than a score. Sound, when it comes, is deafening. One bout sounds like a gunfight. Another like a steelwork's rolling mill.

This work is to be appreciated rather than to be liked.  One viewing is probably not enough to do justice to it. I will have to see this work several times to come to terms with it. But even at the superficial level of a single viewing, it was an enthralling piece and one to be admired.

Emergence followed after the interval.  This was an elegant work and one that was much easier to follow. For a start. there was a score by Owen Belton.  There were female dancers as well as males with the women spending a lot of time on pointe.  The clue to understanding the ballet for me was that one of the characters is called "Bee-Man". A striking, swirling circular backcloth with an aperture and some very delicate lighting gave the impression of the interior of a hive or anthill. The ballet was arranged in the following movements:

• a Prologue with Sophie Martin and Evan Loudon;
• A Second Duet by Bethany Kingsley-Garner and Victor Zarallo;
• The Bee-Man danced by Thomas Edwards;
• A Quartet by Martin, Nicholas Shoesmith, Zarallo and Jamiel Lawrence;
• A Sextet by Zarallo, Lawrence, Barnaby Rook Bishop  Edwards, Shoesmith and Rimbaud Patron; and
• Tunnel by Shoesmith and Pascal Johnson.

The solos were punctuated by the ensemble.  There were some powerful moments such as the scene at the start of the trailer when the females arranged in a single file step out from stage left and appear to absorb the rush of oncoming men as a sea wall resists a storm.

This double bill received loud and sustained applause.  It was a performance that the company's founders, Elizabeth West and Peter Darrell, would have relished.  I don't know how many other companies could have carried off an evening like this.  I can count on one hand the companies that would even try.  By any measure, Scottish Ballet is magnificent.

Yesterday the London entertainment and hospitality industries raised money for the victims of the Manchester and London outrages. Hampson, who like me comes from Manchester, appeared on stage at the start of the show to announce donations by Sadler's Wells and to appeal for donations from the audience. The ushers had collecting boxes at the end of the show and judging by the sound of the rattling they must have received a lot of contributions.

Scottish Ballet's Next Performances

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After the treat of seeing the first ballet company that I got to know and love in my own region if not exactly my own back yard (see Empire Blanche: Dawson's Swan Lake 4 June 2016) I checked Scottish Ballet's website to see when we could next welcome them back to our green and pleasant land, Unfortunately, not any time soon. Their next advertised engagements are the Edinburgh Festival, an Autumn Tour , Christopher Hampson's Hansel and Gretel in Edinburgh (10 - 31 Dec 2016), Glasgow (5 - 14 Jan 2017), Aberdeen (18 - 21 Jan 2017) and Inverness (25 - 28 Jan 2017) and then appearances at UC Berkeley and Los Angeles in May 2017). So it looks like another two treks to Edinburgh or Glasgow in the next few months - or maybe three as I also to see the talented young dancers of Ballet West when I can.

One of the works that Scottish Ballet will perform at the Edinburgh Festival and take on tour is Crystal Pite's Emergence which is shown in the clip above. I believe that the film was made by Pacific Northwest Ballet of Seattle who danced the work in 2013. Pite, who is one of the Associate Artists of Sadler's Wells, created this work for the National Ballet of Canada in 2009 to a score by Owen Belton and it has won all sorts of awards. Incidentally, I see that Pite comes from the same Canadian province as Danielle Gould although British Columbia is so vast that they would never have been exactly neighbours. Scottish Ballet will perform Emergence with Angelin Preljoçaj's MC14/22 (Ceci est mon corps) at the Festival Theatre between 18 and 20 Aug 2916. They will then take it together with a new work by Sophie Laplane to Glasgow (29 Sept - 1 Oct), Inverness (7 - 8 Oct) and Aberdeen (14 - 15 Oct 2016).

I saw Hansel and Gretel in Glasgow on 21 Dec 2013 with Andrew Peasgood and Bethany Kingsley-Garner in the title roles and enjoyed it very much (see Scottish Ballet's Hansel and Gretel 23 Dec 2013) and I strongly recommend it.