Climb the sky

“I love the word “rescue”. It indicates a whole story in a single word,” states internationally renowned choreographer Crystal Pite. Ten Duets on a Theme of Rescue (2008) was originally created for Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet. This collaboration is Pite’s first time working with the dancers of NDT 2, and marks the work’s premiere in the Netherlands. “The creation of this work was an act of excavation. After building the choreography, I foraged within it for images that evoked rescue; images that already existed within the dancing like fragments of an untold narrative.” says Pite. Pite has been an associate choreographer with NDT since 2008 and renewed her commitment to the company for the next four years. For NDT, she previously created Pilot X (2005), Plot Point (2010, nominated for the prestigious Benois de La Dance award), Solo Echo (2012), and The Statement (2016). Her most recent work premiered in May of 2022, and marks the beginning of a longer collaboration with NDT, Complicité Theater and Artistic Director, Simon McBurney.

French choreographer Noé Soulier questions the way in which we perceive and interpret gestures and explores dance through various techniques. In projects such as the book Actions, mouvements et gestes, and the work Mouvement sur movement made in 2013, Soulier introduces a discrepancy between the discourse and the gestures that accompany it. By doing so, he attempts to activate the corporeal memory of spectators through movements relating to absent objects or events.

-|-
Soulier studied at the CNSMD of Paris, at the National Ballet School of Canada, and at P.A.R.T.S in Brussels. He obtained a master’s degree in philosophy from the Sorbonne and participated in a residency programme at Palais de Tokyo: Le Pavillon. In 2010, he won the Danse Élargie prize of the Théâtre de la Ville and Musée de la Danse. Soulier was associate artist at the Toulouse / Occitanie National Centre for Choreographic Development from 2016 to 2018, and at the National Dance Centre in Pantin from 2014 to 2019. In July 2020, he became director of the CNDC in Angers, a unique institution in the world of dance that combines a creative choreographic centre, a school for contemporary dance, and a programme of dance presentations. With this new work, Soulier will be making his debut with NDT.

Out of Breath (2002) by the Swedish choreographer, Johan Inger marks a celebration of life and death, and our human defiance of its inescapability. “I created Out of Breath during a tumultuous time in my life when the dramatic birth of my daughter brutally sparked the awareness that life can be extremely fragile from the very start”, says the choreographer. “The piece addresses the ever lingering presence of death, how we tend to forget this is part of our daily lives but also how that anxiety is constantly surpassed and transcended by the vibration and passion for life.”