More Creatures ...

Monday, 25 March 2013. On Saturday afternoon I saw the National Ballet’s performance of Crystal Pite’s Emergence-- not for the first time-- and again I was blown away by it. Pite’s ballet uses the full company to create an extraordinary sense of hive life. The dancers, part of the time masked, and in identical costumes, move within a commissioned score by Owen Belton that combines electronic music with sounds of humming and buzzing.

I came out of the theatre afterwards humming and buzzing myself. I felt Pite had taken me into a different form of consciousness, and for a little while I’d come close to experiencing something of the world the way insects might do—or maybe what I'd felt were the insect possibilities (traces?) we humans harbour.

Though Pite was inspired by Steven Johnson’s Emergence: the Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software, the insects the dancers conjured most vividly were bees, not ants. And what insect more suitable for dancers after all, since bees are known to dance directions to where pollen and nectar are to be found.

Check this out to see how the dancing works-- and pardon the Volvo commercial at the beginning-- http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2009/apr/05/dancing-bees-show-direction-distance

The piece opens with a dancer (partnered) emerging from an egg or cocoon—stretching her limbs awkwardly, collapsing, then struggling up again. Then it gives way to a swarm of dancers who are masked and assume a stooped posture on hands and feet, bug-like in shape, and moving in ways that made me think of film footage I’ve seen of bees working at various tasks. The demands the choreography places on the dancers are high—they frequently move across the stage in awkward positions, their gestures reaching and angular.

The National Ballet has posted an excerpt from Emergence on UTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG5tnVf6z_8  The clip gives you a good taste of the sound but doesn’t include the more insect-like parts of the dance, so you’ll just have to take my word for it—or watch for it to come round again. 

Here’s what The Globe’s dance critic, Paula Citron, wrote about the work when it was first performed in 2009*:

“The glory of the piece is Pite’s myriad insect imagery rendered in startling physicality. But more than that, her ability to conjure up parallels in human behaviour is what gives Emergence its psychological depth.”

* For the whole review go to: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/theatre-and-performance/theatre-reviews/the-four-seasons-and-emergence-a-clever-pairing-by-the-national-ballet/article10075204/