Crystal Pite’s much-acclaimed Vancouver-based company Kidd Pivot performs The Tempest Replica -- the Canadian premiere of a National Arts Centre co-production -- in the Theatre of the NAC on Thursday, September 27 and Friday, September 28, 2012 at 7:30 p.m.

In her latest full-length work (80 minutes, no intermission) based on motifs from one of Shakespeare’s final plays, The Tempest (1610-1611), award-winning Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite stages a gripping game of revenge and forgiveness, reality and imagination. Swathed in white light, shadows abounding, with music composed by longtime collaborator Owen Belton and a film montage by Jamie Nesbitt, The Tempest Replica is startlingly innovative. Pite explores motifs from the play in two contexts: a maquette of Shakespeare’s island as a metaphor for isolation, captivity, and desire, and a nostalgic cityscape that evokes longing. Chalk-white replicas deliver the essential plot points of the story, but the emotion and tension of the narrative is fleshed out by real characters. In this magical retelling, Crystal Pite's vivid theatrical sensibility and complex choreography complement the exquisite physicality of the dancers, their fluidity heightening the drama of the plot. To explore and demonstrate this duplication of character and copy, the story and the body requires something incomparably precious: the mastery and articulation of the dancer.

The Tempest Replica is a National Arts Centre co-production with Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt), Gemeinnütziger Kulturfonds Frankfurt Rhein Main, Monaco Dance Forum (Monaco), Sadler’s Wells (London), DanceHouse (Vancouver), L’Agora de la danse (Montreal), and SFU Woodward’s (Vancouver).

For The Tempest Replica, Kidd Pivot’s collaborators include:

Owen Belton, composer

Nancy Bryant and Linda Chow, costume designers

Jay Gower Taylor, set designer

Alessandro Juliani and Meg Roe, sound designers

Robert Sondergaard and Jonathan Ryder, lighting designers

Jamie Nesbitt, projection designer

Performers :

Bryan Arias

Eric Beauchesne

Sandra Marín Garcia

Yannick Matthon

Jiří Pokorný

Cindy Salgado

Jermaine Maurice Spivey                                              

[The You Show] "Pite's crack team sure come close to defying such mundane natural forces [as gravity]. The nine dancers ... have hyper-articulated bodies and strong presence. Each one seems born to embody the intense drama and epic comedy of Pite's entertaining show, which had its world premiere ... to sold-out houses... Sound, light, movement and dramatic characterization come together... Pite is becoming a master storyteller, a rare accomplishment in a contemporary choreographer."
Kaija Pepper, The Globe and Mail, May 11, 2011

[Lost Action] "Pite has a rare gift for orchestrating bodies ...but she has an even rarer gift for conveying emotion ... there are few choreographers of Pite's generation who can create such a world of invention with just seven dancers and an empty stage.”
Judith Mackrell, The Guardian (London), September 18, 2009

"Lost Action, however it is understood or experienced by the crowds that filled the theatre (the last four performances were sold out), is a major work of art. Always, Pite’s strength is how she works her ideas physically, exploring them in kinetic terms to make thrilling choreography."
Kaija Pepper, The Dance Current, March 24-April 1, 2006

About Crystal Pite

Acclaimed West Coast-based Crystal Pite -- a National Arts Centre Associate Dance Artist and Associate Choreographer of Nederlands Dans Theater -- is widely regarded as one of today's most exceptional contemporary choreographers. Crystal Pite is also an extraordinary dancer -- a former company member of Ballet British Columbia and William Forsythe's Ballett Frankfurt -- whose distinct choreographic style fuses classical elements, the complexity and freedom of structured improvisation, and a strong theatrical sensibility. Crystal’s choreographic debut was in 1990, at Ballet British Columbia. Since then, she has created works for Cullberg Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater 1, Ballett Frankfurt, Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal (Resident Choreographer, 2001-2004), Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, Ballet British Columbia, Alberta Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, and several independent dance artists. Crystal Pite/Kidd Pivot have received numerous awards, including the Banff Centre’s Clifford E. Lee Award (1995); the Bonnie Bird North American Choreography Award (2004); Isadora Award for Choreography (2005); Rio Tinto Alcan Performing Arts Award – Dance (2006); 2008 Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, Mentorship Program (2008); 2009 Choreographer of the Year Ballet Tanz Yearbook (for Dark Matters and Lost Action); Jacob's Pillow Dance Award (2011); Lola Award (2012); and The Canada Council's Jacqueline Lemieux Prize (2012). Pite's work has received several Dora Mavor Moore Awards (2009, 2012), and a Jessie Richardson Theatre Award (2006).

About Kidd Pivot

Kidd Pivot is a performance company formed by Crystal Pite in 2002 to create work integrating movement, original music, text, rich visual design, and a keen sense of wit and invention. Kidd Pivot's performances are assembled with recklessness and rigour, balancing sharp exactitude with irreverence and risk. The company tours nationally and internationally with productions that include Uncollected Work (2003), Double Story (2004) created with Richard Siegal, Lost Action (2006), Dark Matters (2009), and The You Show (2010). In 2011, the National Film Board of Canada released a short film, Trace, based on Lost Action. Crystal Pite was commissioned to create a piece for the 2010 Cultural Olympiad in Vancouver, BC, in association with the 2010 Winter Olympics. The result was Dark Matters, which continues to tour internationally; Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival presented sold-out performances in 2011 and 2012. Kidd Pivot's residency at the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt (2010-2012) provided Crystal Pite the opportunity to create and tour her most recent works, The You Show and The Tempest Replica, with her dancers and collaborators.

 

• Crystal Pite/Kidd Pivot performs The Tempest Replica in the Theatre of the National Arts Centre on Thursday September 27 and Friday September 28, 2012 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $38, $47, and $51 for adults and $20.50, $25, and $27 for students (upon presentation of a valid student ID card).
• Tickets are available at the NAC Box Office (in person); tickets are also available (with service charges) at all Ticketmaster outlets, by telephone from Ticketmaster at 1-888-991-2787 (ARTS), online through the Ticketmaster link on the NAC's website at www.nac-cna.ca
• Subject to availability, full-time students (aged 13-29) with valid Trinity Live Rush™ membership may buy up to 2 tickets per performance at the discount price of $12 per ticket. Tickets are available online (www.nac-cna.ca) or at the NAC box office from 10 a.m. on the day before the performance until 6 p.m. on the day of the show. This includes all available seats, including the best seats in the house. Check out liverush.ca for information on the Trinity Live Rush program.
• Groups of 10 or more save 15% to 20% off regular ticket prices. To reserve your seats, call 613 947-7000, ext. 634 or e-mail grp@nac-cna.ca
• For additional information and photos/video of the production, visit the NAC website at www.nac-cna.ca

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Information:

Clara Wicke, Marketing and Communications Officer, NAC Dance
613 947-7000, ext. 379
Cell: 613-617-4782
clara.wicke@nac-cna.ca