Associate choreographer
Photo: Michael Slobodian
Choreographer and performer Crystal Pite (Canada, 1970) began her dance career in 1988 as a company dancer with Ballet BC, later joining William Forsythe’s Ballett Frankfurt. In 1990, Pite made her choreographic debut with Ballet BC. Since then, she has created more than fifty works for companies including Paris Opera Ballet, The Royal Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater, Cullberg Ballet, Ballett Frankfurt, The National Ballet of Canada, Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal (where she served as resident choreographer from 2001 to 2004), Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, and Ballet British Columbia. She has also collaborated with Electric Company Theatre and Robert Lepage.
Pite has been an associate choreographer with Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) since 2008. Her work is celebrated for its delicate yet direct approach to addressing complex themes such as trauma, crisis, addiction, conflict, and impermanence through contemporary dance.
Alongside her role at NDT, Pite is the founder of her own company Kidd Pivot, an associate dance artist at Canada’s National Arts Centre, and an associate artist at Sadler’s Wells, London.
For NDT 1, Pite has created the following works: Pilot X (2005), The Second Person (2007), Frontier (2008), Plot Point (2010, nominated for the Benois de la Danse), Solo Echo (2012), Parade (2013), In the Event (2015), The Statement (2016), Partita for 8 Dancers (2018), and Kunstkamer (2019). In 2023, Pite worked with the dancers of NDT 2 for the first time to create Ten Duets on a Theme of Rescue.
A remarkable project within the more than fifteen years that Pite has been associated with NDT is the Figures in Extinction trilogy. Over a period of four years, Pite and Complicité’s artistic director Simon McBurney created three works for NDT 1, each developed in response to the previous, reflecting on the climate crisis and the fragility of humankind. Figures in Extinction [1.0] – the list (2022) was awarded the Zwaan for Most Impressive Dance Production. Both subsequent works – Figures in Extinction [2.0] – but then you come to the humans (2024) and Figures in Extinction [3.0] – requiem (2025) – were also widely acclaimed by audiences nationally and internationally.
From season 2025–2026 onwards, NDT is proud to continue its collaboration with Pite in her role as associate choreographer. Her iconic work The Statement (2016) will be revived by NDT 1 as part of the programme RESONANCE.
