Body and Soul, Paris Opera Ballet, Opera Garnier, Paris, October-November, 2019, choreography and text by Crystal Pite, set design Jay Gower Taylor, costumes Nancy Bryant, lighting Tom Visser.

What has made Crystal Pite “one of the dance world’s most sought-after artists” (The Guardian) is not simply the ravishing movement sequences that she invents. Her dance-works are animated thoughts about the complicated miracle of being human in the universe—ongoing statements from an evolving worldview. She seems to want to touch the core of meaning, to glimpse, even for a moment, the why of it all (or not even that—the what of it all, the mechanics of existence). Through simple and unaffected images and metaphors that she manufactures from the unique language of human physicality—from dance—she invites us to join her in considering the enduring mysteries of the human condition.
The latest chapter in her continuing inquiry, her new evening-length work for the Paris Opera Ballet titled Body and Soul, probes ideas of conflict, control and social cohesion. Continue reading →