Artists

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  Choreographer/Director Crystal Pite

  

  Choreographer/Director Crystal Pite

  In a choreographic career spanning three decades, Crystal Pite has created more than 50 works for dance companies in Canada and around the world. She is the founding artistic director of the Vancouver-based company Kidd Pivot, world-renowned for radical hybrids of dance and theatre that are assembled with a keen sense of wit and invention. Ms. Pite is known for works that courageously address such challenging and complex themes as trauma, addiction, conflict, consciousness, and mortality; her bold and original vision has earned her international acclaim and inspired an entire generation of dance artists. 

  Crystal Pite was born in Terrace, BC, and grew up in Victoria. She began her dance career as a company member of Ballet British Columbia (Ballet BC), then William Forsythe’s Ballett Frankfurt. She made her choreographic debut in 1990 at Ballet BC, and since then has created works for such prominent companies as The Royal Ballet, The Paris Opera Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater, Cullberg Ballet, Ballett Frankfurt, The National Ballet of Canada, Ballets Jazz Montréal (resident choreographer 2001–04), and Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet. She has also collaborated with Electric Company Theatre and Robert Lepage, and is currently Associate Choreographer of Nederlands Dans Theater, Associate Dance Artist of Canada’s National Arts Centre, and Associate Artist of Sadler’s Wells in London.  

  In 2002, she formed Kidd Pivot, a company that strives to distill and translate universal questions into artworks that connect us to deep and essential parts of humanity.  

  “Running through all of my work is the question of what moves us,” she says. Kidd Pivot tours internationally with critically acclaimed works such as Betroffenheit and Revisor (both co-created with playwright Jonathon Young), The Tempest Replica, Dark Matters, Lost Action and The You Show. In 2008, Crystal Pite participated in the inaugural GGPAA Mentorship Program as the protégée of 2004 GGPAA laureate Veronica Tennant, former principal dancer of the National Ballet of Canada. 

  Crystal Pite is a Member of the Order of Canada. Her other awards and honours include the Benois de la Danse, Canada Council Jacqueline Lemieux Prize, Grand Prix de la danse de Montréal, two UK Critics’ Circle Dance Awards, four Laurence Olivier Awards, and an honorary doctorate from Simon Fraser University. 

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  Writer/Director Jonathon Young

  

  Writer/Director Jonathon Young

  Canadian theatre artist Jonathon Young is playwright-in-residence at Kidd Pivot and a core artist of Electric Company Theatre, where he has created and performed in over 20 original productions: Tear the Curtain! (Arts Club Theatre, Canadian Stage), No Exit (American Conservatory Theatre), Betroffenheit (international tour). He has worked as an actor on stages across Canada : Knives in Hens (Coalmine Theatre), The Full Light of Day (Electric Company/ Luminato Festival), All But Gone (Necessary Angel, Toronto), The Great Gatsby (Theatre Calgary), Hamlet (Bard on the Beach, Vancouver). In addition to Betroffenheit and Revisor, Jonathon collaborated with Crystal Pite on two productions for Nederlands Dans Theater (Parade and The Statement). Jonathon is the recipient of an Olivier Award and the UK National Dance Award.

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