Figures in Extinction [1.0]

Overview
Dates
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2022 -

A Co-Production between Nederlands Dans Theater and Complicité

Figures in Extinction [1.0] is the first part of a major new collaboration between Director Simon McBurney and Choreographer Crystal Pite, who will work together over four years to create three new works, each developed in response to the last.

Across continents, Simon and Crystal have exchanged ideas reflecting on their fears and cautious hopes for the age we are living in, and how artists can meaningfully create in the face of mass destruction. Their process draws on a rich and surprising array of source materials, from the sound of ice-caps melting and tree roots growing to the clarion calls of climate change deniers. Together they will nurture a new method of exchange, embracing uncertainty and looking for sparks in the darkness.

We are living in an age of extinction: of animals, of language, of our connection with nature and of age-old ways of knowing. Can we ever hope to give a name to what we are losing? What does it mean to bear witness to a violence in which we are both perpetrators and victims?

“We have been trying to RE-CONNECT for so long… And have been cut off from our sense of being ‘home’ since we left the world of animals and began to make this earth in our own image…” Simon McBurney

Figures in Extinction [1.0] presented by NDT, premiered at The Hague on 6 May 2022 followed by a tour of the Netherlands, as part of NDT’s Dreams 360 programme. Figures in Extinction [1.0] toured to Sadlers Wells from 19-22 April 2023 as part of a trio of short works.

“Astonishingly imaginative conception and choreography, exquisitely designed and lit, spectacularly danced...Stop whatever you’re doing, and go.” The Telegraph

“The dance in Figures in extinction [1.0] brings back the feeling to what we don't want to feel. Fabulous lighting and mesmerizing visual and sound effects take us from an orange-red tundra to an ice landscape.” Trouw Newspaper

“A knockout new collaboration from the Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite and the British theatre director and actor Simon McBurney.” The Times

“Crystal Pite and Simon McBurney’s Figures in Extinction [1.0] stands out as a powerful portrait of nature under threat.” The Guardian