Crystal Pite
Crystal Pite (born December 15, 1970 in Terrace (British Columbia) ) is a Canadian ballet dancer and choreographer .
Career
Like numerous dancers, Pite did not attend ballet school, but took private dance, jazz, singing and acting lessons from the age of four, among others with Maureen Eastick and Wendy Green in Victoria (British Columbia) . At the age of 13, she developed her first own choreography, The Bug, in 1983, taking part in the “Young Choreographers” category at the Victoria Dance Festival.
During the summer months Pite studied at the Toronto Dance Theater School and the Banff Center for the Arts . Her professional dance career began when she switched to Ballet British Columbia (Ballet BC) in 1988 . In the eight years that she was part of this company, she worked with Reid Anderson, Patricia Neary, Barry Ingham, John Alleyne, and numerous other choreographers. Here she also met the dancer and choreographer William Forsythe .
Act
Her first own professional choreography was created in 1989: Between the Bliss and Me was included in the repertoire of Ballet BC. A compilation of earlier short choreographies contained her piece Reflections on Billie from 1992 and Shapes of a Passing from 1994. In the same year she developed In a Time of Darkness for the Albert Ballet , which dealt with violence in war and revolution. With this piece she won the 1995 Banff Centers Clifford E. Lee Choreographic Award as the youngest ever to be awarded , combined with a six-week study visit to the Banff Center for the Arts. During her artist-in-residence time there, she wrote Quest , which was included in the repertoire of the Alberta Ballet. Critics praised her choreographies, which are characterized by curiosity, humor, intelligence and boldness and contain many inventive and artistically risky elements.
In 1996 she came to Frankfurt am Main and danced for William Forsythes at the Frankfurt Ballet , took part in numerous guest performances by the company in Europe, Asia and America and wrote her piece Field: Fiction , in which she was inspired by Annie Dillard's book The Writing Life .
In 2001 she returned to Canada and founded her own dance company in Vancouver with KIDD PIVOT , with which she gave international guest performances with her own choreographies. Among other things, the pieces Uncollected Work (2002), Double Story (2004 in collaboration with Richard Siegal), Lost Action (2006) and Fault (2008) were created.
In 2010 she brought Dieter Buroch to the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt, where Pite put together a new company called Kidd Pivot Frankfurt RM , which was supported by the Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain , among others . With the European premiere of Dark Matters in May of the same year in Mousonturm, Pite and her new troupe began a tour of Europe. In May 2010 her choreography was shown at the 7th International Festival of Contemporary Dance in Venice . Her piece The You Show followed in spring 2011 and her latest choreography in October 2011 with The Tempest Replica . Her contract expired at the end of 2012, and Pite has lived and worked in Vancouver ever since.
literature
- Gerald Siegmund (Ed.): William Forsythe. Thinking in motion , Henschel Verlag, Berlin, 2004 ISBN 978-3-89487-472-8
- Laura Cappelle: In charge of the room . Interview, in: Financial Times , September 10, 2016, p. 14
Web links
- 50 choreographers of contemporary dance in Germany on the Goethe-Institut website
- Crystal Pite biography in Library and Archives Canada
- Dance Le Magazine de la Dance Actuelle à Montréal
- Arts alive website
Individual evidence
- ^ Website of the International Festival of Contemporary Dance in Venice
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Pite, Crystal |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Canadian ballet dancer and choreographer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 15, 1970 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Terrace (British Columbia) |