LIGHT OF PASSAGE

Light of Passage, Crystal Pite’s new creation for the Norwegian National Ballet is danced to Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, Op. 36 «The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs».

The work is in three movements. The first movement, Flight Pattern, created by Pite in 2017 for 36 dancers of the Royal Ballet, expresses the plight of refugees. Pite locates her creation at the border between past traumas and unknown futures.

Pite says «The first movement of Symphony No. 3, is like a palindrome, with the sense and sound of the many building and unbuilding at either end, and the lament of a single individual in the centre. This lone human voice distills a magnitude of suffering into something we can approach and embody».

«There is a phrase of movement - a little shard of choreographic material that we named ‘flight pattern’… this motif contains a repeating pattern of rootedness and heaviness in the legs as the upper body and arms move like wings, seeking the air. Contained in that phrase is the tension between despair and hope.»

The second movement, Covenant, takes its inspiration from the UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child), and includes six young children along with eighteen company members.

«Covenant is a choreographic expression of our duty to protect children and the earth they are inheriting,” says Pite.»

Central principles of the UNCRC are non-discrimination, best interests of the child, right to life and development, and the right to be heard. “I want to see if I can translate the promise of this document into choreography, to see if these principles can be embodied and danced.

From the tumult and displacements of Flight Pattern, to the promise of safe passage in Covenant, the theme of thresholds and borders continues through the third movement of this work, Passage. Here, Pite approaches the theme of loss and disappearance, and the grief of separation. Along with her cast of 36 company members, she has invited two elder performers into the creation. «Passage looks at the ultimate border crossing,» says Pite «The threshold between the known and the unknown. Moving from this world into whatever comes next, and the immeasurable distance between the departed and the bereaved.» Along with Górecki’s music, Pite draws inspiration from Mary Oliver’s poem In Blackwater Woods, which concludes:

To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

«Though the themes of this creation may be difficult, I think there is a profound optimism in putting something like this out into the world and connecting to each other through it.» says Pite. «When people collaborate to create a work of art and an audience gathers to witness it, there is something very hopeful, delightful and powerful about the experience. I want to create conditions in the theatre where we can gather around what we cannot know and grapple with it, together.»