Crystal Pite
Crystal Pite
Crystal Pite has special influence within my research, this is because of her integration from ballet dancer to contemporary dancer and choreographer. Her position within the research is unique and gives an insight into going from ballet to contemporary, what the differences are. Whilst looking at her own values and principles I will look at how her style and approach have changed through this. What might I find within this that supports my work?
I am not looking as much into her values and principles as to her experience and her way of working because of her career history, how that shaped the dancer and choreographer she is today.
Her authentic self:
When she went to Ballet BC she felt she had to fake it and wing it within the company. She felt like she had to catch up with the others because she was so young when she started; She felt like an imposter.
Crystal Pite then got a chance to choreograph on the company.
She was not a loud confident person or dancer however had a subtle and quiet confidence, this was clear throughout her years as a company dancer. However, Pite had confidence when being offered a chance to create and choreograph on the company, she was excited to explore and create in these early years.
As a performer she gets very nervous however as a choreographer she does not get as nervous. Pite believes that she is abetter choreographer then she is a performer, therefore, she feels she is stronger in this field.
When creating she is moved by conflict and connection. This is a theme she uses throughout many of her works, she has the belief that within her own way of choreographing that this is the starting point, it is what moves her and how she creates.
Clarity of intention:
"Her intentions are conveyed, with strange, fierce intensity, through the wordless language of the body." (Jennings, 2013)
Conflict:
Energising tension.
- Integrate at a macro bit of the subject of the work. Integrate at the micro within the body.
Connection:
Connect audience to performer and performer to audience.
- Connection through audience knowing the music.
It has been said how she is similar to artists such as William Forsythe, Arkraham Khan and Hofesh Schecter in the way she examines the human condition and "sense this spirit in the work of choreographers" (Jennings, 2013)
Method, creativity, technique
Duets:
Two people and then she explores having a duet as one person and the rest of the group as the partner.
-Thinking of everyone as one body. Polarity, being you but being part of something more.
Canon:
Canon is a huge choreographic method that she uses throughout her work, it can be very subtle or it can be a significant section of a piece such as in the piece 'The Seasons’ Canon', 2016 ("Crystal Pite - Ballet - Season 19/20 Programming", 2020).
(Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2015)
Likes to Tell Story- "interested in emotion and I'm interested in connecting to other humans through the work that I do." (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2015)
"If I feel like I'm connecting to some kind of a story or a particular content then I feel inspired, I feel challenged." (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2015)
She thinks dance is not the most efficient way of telling a story- Interdisciplinary- "It is a really inefficient way to tell a story and if, especially if you're trying to tell a complex story and that's why I don't only use dance in my work." (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2015)
"I use lots of different tools to try to get things across and to express things." (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2015)
It can be "a really efficient tool if you want to evoke a kind of visceral response in people, it can help to override language and override certain kinds of thinking that can help you get to the heart of something very quickly." (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2015)
Improvisation:
"That was a new idea for me, I had always improvised but I had never experienced taking improvisation and using that as a generative tool, using it as a way to build choreography, or to think of leaving windows along a piece of choreography for improvisation to live." (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2015) She discovered this during her time at Frankfurt Ballet, with William Forsythe.
"Those were great discoveries there and I think that that brought a kind of complexity to what I was doing that wouldn't have been there otherwise." (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2015)
Contemporary:
What William Forsythe does his methods are so complex she said: "I wouldn't say that I was able to internalize much of it, I was able to internalize some of it and I was able to appreciate all of it." (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2015)
Working there changed how he thought and worked. "It changed the way I thought about creation, changed the way I thought about choreography, about performance, about improvisation. So all of those things have been great discoveries and really really important to me being able to go forward in my own way as a choreographer." (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2015)
Furthermore, she explains how these have changed- "Raising the value of it and creating space for these things especially improv, thinking about how to use improvisation as a way to generate movement." (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2015)
Ballet:
Crystal Pite has special influence within my research, this is because of her integration from ballet dancer to contemporary dancer and choreographer. Her position within the research is unique and gives an insight into going from ballet to contemporary, what the differences are. Whilst looking at her own values and principles I will look at how her style and approach have changed through this. What might I find within this that supports my work?
I am not looking as much into her values and principles as to her experience and her way of working because of her career history, how that shaped the dancer and choreographer she is today.
Her authentic self:
When she went to Ballet BC she felt she had to fake it and wing it within the company. She felt like she had to catch up with the others because she was so young when she started; She felt like an imposter.
Crystal Pite then got a chance to choreograph on the company.
She was not a loud confident person or dancer however had a subtle and quiet confidence, this was clear throughout her years as a company dancer. However, Pite had confidence when being offered a chance to create and choreograph on the company, she was excited to explore and create in these early years.
As a performer she gets very nervous however as a choreographer she does not get as nervous. Pite believes that she is abetter choreographer then she is a performer, therefore, she feels she is stronger in this field.
When creating she is moved by conflict and connection. This is a theme she uses throughout many of her works, she has the belief that within her own way of choreographing that this is the starting point, it is what moves her and how she creates.
Clarity of intention:
"Her intentions are conveyed, with strange, fierce intensity, through the wordless language of the body." (Jennings, 2013)
Conflict:
Energising tension.
- Integrate at a macro bit of the subject of the work. Integrate at the micro within the body.
Connection:
Connect audience to performer and performer to audience.
- Connection through audience knowing the music.
It has been said how she is similar to artists such as William Forsythe, Arkraham Khan and Hofesh Schecter in the way she examines the human condition and "sense this spirit in the work of choreographers" (Jennings, 2013)
Method, creativity, technique
Duets:
Two people and then she explores having a duet as one person and the rest of the group as the partner.
-Thinking of everyone as one body. Polarity, being you but being part of something more.
Canon:
Canon is a huge choreographic method that she uses throughout her work, it can be very subtle or it can be a significant section of a piece such as in the piece 'The Seasons’ Canon', 2016 ("Crystal Pite - Ballet - Season 19/20 Programming", 2020).
(Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2015)
Likes to Tell Story- "interested in emotion and I'm interested in connecting to other humans through the work that I do." (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2015)
"If I feel like I'm connecting to some kind of a story or a particular content then I feel inspired, I feel challenged." (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2015)
She thinks dance is not the most efficient way of telling a story- Interdisciplinary- "It is a really inefficient way to tell a story and if, especially if you're trying to tell a complex story and that's why I don't only use dance in my work." (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2015)
"I use lots of different tools to try to get things across and to express things." (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2015)
It can be "a really efficient tool if you want to evoke a kind of visceral response in people, it can help to override language and override certain kinds of thinking that can help you get to the heart of something very quickly." (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2015)
Improvisation:
"That was a new idea for me, I had always improvised but I had never experienced taking improvisation and using that as a generative tool, using it as a way to build choreography, or to think of leaving windows along a piece of choreography for improvisation to live." (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2015) She discovered this during her time at Frankfurt Ballet, with William Forsythe.
"Those were great discoveries there and I think that that brought a kind of complexity to what I was doing that wouldn't have been there otherwise." (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2015)
What William Forsythe does his methods are so complex she said: "I wouldn't say that I was able to internalize much of it, I was able to internalize some of it and I was able to appreciate all of it." (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2015)
Internalised to Crystal Pite means- "for me it means that those ideas and those ideals are programmed right into your hard drive so that you can have access to those skills and those awarenesses without even having to think." (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2015) She continues to say within this how "there's probably some of that, that is in my system in that way and other things that I can understand and appreciate bu may not have internalized as a mover but it was essential and profound my experience working in Frankfurt and learning from him and from my colleagues in Frankfurt Ballet at the time" (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2015)
Working there changed how he thought and worked. "It changed the way I thought about creation, changed the way I thought about choreography, about performance, about improvisation. So all of those things have been great discoveries and really really important to me being able to go forward in my own way as a choreographer." (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2015)
Furthermore, she explains how these have changed- "Raising the value of it and creating space for these things especially improv, thinking about how to use improvisation as a way to generate movement." (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2015)
Ballet:
In an interview with Luke Jennings, 2013 Pite says how
"In me there's a politeness and obedience that drives me crazy. It's my Victorian upbringing. I resent it, and I push against it." (Jennings, 2013)
"When Pite uses the word Victorian, she's referring to Victoria, British Columbia, the town where she grew up and trained in ballet. The discipline of classical dance was formative. "Ballet is on me like a coding," she says. "I can't wash it off." (Jennings, 2013)
Transitioning from ballet to contemporary she not only was imaginative and flexible in her ability embrace these new ways, but she also had a curiosity that expelled out of her and this could be related back to a value of being authentic, to break restrictions and willingness to be different, especially after coming from the very strict classical ballet world.
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