An evening with Crystal Pite, Review Re-exam Milan

An evening with Crystal Pite.

Friday 26th of May 2017

De Nationale Opera & Ballet

Milan van Ettekoven – DM1

                                                                                                                                                         Credits

 

The Statement - Crystal Pite

Assistant to the choreographer: Ander Zabala

Music: Owen Belton

Playwright: Jonathon Young

Vocal performance: Meg Roe, Colleen Wheeler, Andrew Wheeler, Jonathon Young

Light: Tom Visser

Decor: Jay Gower Taylor

Costumes: Crystal Pite, Joke Visser

World premiere: February 4 2016, Zuiderstrandtheater The Hague

Parade - Crytal Pite

Staged by: Eric Beauchesne, Peter Chu

Assistant to the choreographer: Ander Zabala

Music: Owen Belton

Playwright: Jonathon Young

Jonathon Young

Vocal performance: Craig Erickson, Bill Mondy, Gerard Plunkett, Meg Roe, Jonathon Young

Light: Tom Visser

Additional Lighting: Lisette van der Linden

Decor: Jay Gower Taylor

Costumes: Nancy Bryant

Puppets: Heidi Wilkinson

Puppet costumes: Joke Visser

Video: Wladimiro Woyno

World premiere: February 7 2013, Lucent Danstheater The Hague

Premiere new version: May 18 2017, Zuiderstrandtheater The Hague

On Friday the 26th of May I have visited the latest show of NDT 1, which is called; 'Parade'. This performance is entirely dedicated to choreographer Crystal Pite, 

Within this performance were shown two pieces which are; The Statement, this piece is created in 2016. This one is the new piece of Pite herself, also she showed her older piece called; Parade, this is a work that Crystal Pite created with NDT four years ago. Now she has woven these two works together into a full-evening performance.

This perfomance I can call very strong, rich, diverse, but very diacritical.
Both of the pieces are also really different in the sense of reality. For an example, NDT calls the first piece, the statement, a wedge of realism. The words of NDT; "You can recognize both the characters and the language as being of our world and our time. The Statement is an one-act play, with four characters locked in their own battle for control, and with the morality of their actions. This is, in comparing to the other piece, Parade, more realistic to now and the world". In my opinion this was really clear and showed in a good way of movement and expression. 
in comparison with the Statement was Parade a piece with an older theme, it looked like the events were from a long time ago and in a fictitious way.
NDT describes their second piece as an escalating conflict between two cultures, this presents it in an absurd and dramatic circus act, with the conflict exploding between a camp of clowns and a marching band. The costumes of this piece were really precise within this theme, on the photos on the you can see the costumes. As you can see the costumes are a stereotype image of clowns and a marching band with a more vintage style to it. 

This is the second time I have seen work of Crystal Pite, from the beginning on already I was a fan of her work, I fell in love with the statement, the movement kept watching. There was a tension in the body of the dancers through the whole piece, which was so realistic to the image of the feeling of having a battle. This is why you get more in touch with the piece and more excited to watch. It is an situation which every person in life has and is made into a dance piece. Which is not cliché for me in this work, the choreography shows this elements in a creative way on a high level of dance. And I think this was it what it made so strong. Especially it is a good piece for non dancers, because it relates a lot on daily life of normal people to. And also it is that dance got used now in a understanding way for non dancers to understand what an actual dance piece is about.
 I have no bad comments about this masterpiece of Crystal Pite.

The other piece got me a quite mixed opinion, the concept was clear and the dance part was of course amazing by NDT. A personal opinion is that it was to chaotic in the sense that there was to much happening on stage. My focus was everywhere and not clear, this was more in the begin/middle part of the piece. The thing I liked the most is that there were good changes, like after the beginning of the group part they got into a puppet play/choreography. In this second part of the piece they got to a dance phrase which is "danced" by puppets, it seemed very on the same situation as the first piece was. It was one-act play on spoken words, which you can call the music of that part. The puppet play, as you can call it like that, was mind blowing. They were so precise as in the statement that kept your eye. So by this took dance to a whole other level, this is what NDT does every time with there pieces. I also saw this part as a refresh of the eyes for the audience, especially this was very smart and made the dynamic of the piece interesting. 

For the ones which are curious and what to get an image of what this all looked like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed1GCqIT36Q
(A link to the trailer of the piece.)
NDT's Parade was in the theatres from May 18 till June 15, 2017!!!

Written by;

Milan van Ettekoven