A co-production between Nederlands Dans Theater and Complicité.

We are living in an age of extinction. Can we ever hope to give a name to what we are losing? What does it mean to bear witness to a violence in which we are both perpetrators and victims? 

Across continents, choreographer Crystal Pite and director Simon McBurney have exchanged ideas reflecting on their fears and cautious hopes for the age we are living in, and how artists can meaningfully create in the face of mass destruction. Their process draws on a rich and surprising array of source materials, from the sound of ice-caps melting and tree roots growing to the clarion calls of climate change deniers. Together they will nurture a new method of exchange, embracing uncertainty and looking for sparks in the darkness.

“We have been trying to RE-CONNECT for so long… And have been cut off from our sense of being ‘home’ since we left the world of animals and began to make this earth in our own image…” Simon McBurney

This major new collaboration will see these world-renowned artists work together over four years to create three new works for NDT 1, each developed in response to the last.

The first work, Figures in Extinction [1.0] premiered in The Hague in 2022 and was awarded a Zwaan (Swan) Award for the most impressive dance production at the 2022 Nederlandse Dansdagen. The second work, Figures in Extinction [2.0] But then you come to the humans, premiered in February 2024, and is a searing examination of our need for connection in a separated world. The third and final piece will continue this cross-disciplinary exchange, premiering in the UK in February 2025, and offering a spark in the darkness as to where we might go.

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© Harmen Straatman