When Crystal Pite and her company, Kidd Pivot, came to Tisch Dance last fall, it was an unforgettable experience for the 60 Tisch dancers who performed in the piece. It also was unforgettable for those of us who watched the performance at New York City Center. I asked some of the students in my Graduate Seminar to write about it, from either side of the footlights. Mimi Liu wrote about the impact of seeing this major work, and Donald Shorter wrote about the experience of working directly with Pite.
—Wendy Perron
NYU TISCH DANCE STUDENTS IN POLARIS AT NEW YORK CITY CENTER
A Review of Crystal Pite’s Polaris
By Mimi Liu
Crystal Pite’s Polaris was a magnificent visual stimulation. This ambitious piece (ambitious, in that the cast included sixty-six dancers) triggered many vivid images of nature for me. One was the wave of a dark sea, or the tides ebbing freely across the stage in different speeds. As I watched the piece intensely, I also imagined a mysterious black hole that drew me more and more towards the stage. It was a super powerful suction or a magnet that sucked the audience into the group of dancers, and I remember at one fleeting moment on the edge of my seat, I wanted to resist its group power. On a lighter interpretation, I thought of a school of piranhas, or a clan of ants, working fiercely towards a common goal. Perhaps also a large set of dominos that fell from one form into the next. No matter how one can describe the images that came to mind, the dominating power of a group seemed to be the central concept of this piece. In the midst of all the camaraderie to achieve a common goal, individual identities were being stripped away in order to become a stronger whole.
Different sections ranged from a full cast dancing in unison to a couple sections of pas de six or pas de deux, but the former has been choreographically prevalent. Because of the contrast between smaller and bigger group sizes, I was able to infer that the individuals in this dance tried to break free from the collective body. I wanted to breathe more, because the piece was very motional, almost as if my diaphragm were expanding and shrinking constantly with what I was seeing on stage. The dramatic music also assisted the dance with getting more fresh air to ripple through my body. My overall response was that this piece was refreshing and breathtaking!
Polaris had a number of choreographic contrasts. The first one was chaos versus order (unison). The second was adding versus subtracting the bodies in space, making it more confined or spacious. The third was I think the most emphasized, which was the group (the power of the many) versus the individual. The dark pulsing communal energy dominated the dance, more so than the few soloists. And the fourth one (resulting from the third contrast of group vs. individual) was being buried into the group versus standing out from the rest of the group. When I say buried, I mean when the stage is fully invaded by all sixty-plus bodies, and when I say standing out, I mean when some individuals broke away from the large ensemble and danced with less claustrophobic spacing. When the soloists were dancing on stage, I was able to pay more attention to what they were actually doing. However, when the entire cast of millions appeared on stage, it became visually overwhelming, and I lost my focus on them as individuals.
Paradoxically enough, I knew most of the dancers on stage because they were the Tisch students. I knew their names, I saw them everyday, and I knew their faces. When all of them danced together plus the dancers of Kidd Pivot, I couldn’t bother to notice who was who. Instead, I cared more about how they looked as a group. What they were trying to say by metamorphosing into various shapes and sculptures became my point of interest whenever the group danced together as one.
Circular movements versus angular/dynamic movements was another contrast within this sixteen-minute piece. The piece started with a circular clump, almost like a group of penguins staying close with one another in order to preserve their body heat to brace for the freezing winter. Thus, this opening part created a harmonious feel visually. In contrast, an example of an angular/dynamic movement took place during the middle of the dance when the stage was filled with all the dancers, and they all kneeled on the floor, supported by their head with all elbows pointing upward. This moment of unison stillness was soon interrupted by what seemed like a random pattern of dynamic pulses. It was aesthetically a bit eerie in that all the dancers looked almost like black tarantulas with their legs spread across the stage…the complete opposite of harmony!
Pite’s choreographic strategies included using canon, stillness, unison, expanding and shrinking the space using impulsive movements every now and then, making shapes and forms organically and then unfolding or reforming them, making it all becoming something else. These choreographic tools served to create powerful cause and effects that helped to establish the concept of group power. In the parts that had all the dancers, if one of them moved, then they all moved. There was always an instigator, one who dropped one pebble into the water and there would be an aftereffect happening throughout the entire stage.
One final note about Polaris: although technically the Tisch dancers were differentiated from Pite’s own dancers, I felt that the Tisch dancers were just as good, if not more energetic, as the six company dancers from Kidd Pivot. Bravo Tisch Dance!
Tisch MFA Student Donald Shorter with Crystal Pite
Polaris, from the Inside
By Donald Shorter
Polaris wasn’t just what you saw on stage, it was a way of life. It was a group collective that informed my artistic practice in ways that I never knew were possible. One of the many things I will walk away with is having a new understanding of how to investigate the idea of inner conflict within the body. This idea is a core concept for Crystal Pite’s movement. I like being able to ask myself how can certain parts of the body move in ways that aren’t congruent? I can create a conversation within certain parts of the body that are or aren’t agreeing with the rest of it, and that’s what’s interesting! For instance, I can move my head, pelvis, and feet while exploring conversations in three different levels of space. I can also add elements of simplicity, complexity, stillness, space, and tension. This tool allows me to create movement in ways I would never have imagined before.
I was grateful for the chance to be a sponge and absorb all of Crystal’s insight. She has a unique way of thinking about dance and dance making. Her generosity is something I admire and is what made me willing to work harder and smarter. She gave us everything she had and more. I don’t know how she’s able to be so many things to so many people while being so kind, thoughtful, clear, and humble. Before the opening night performance she was backstage fixing our costumes and giving out hugs. Each night before our performance all 76 members of the cast, including Crystal, would circle up as one unit to hold hands and time our ability to pass the squeeze to the next person. Today we made our fastest time of 8.2 seconds!
I will never forget being in the green room watching the show on the monitor and she came in and started talking to me. I was like, this is pretty cool! I asked her questions about maintaining artistic integrity and how she’s able to manage the demands of her life. It was as if I was talking with a friend. She later thanked me personally for being in her piece and being so giving and for setting a prime example to the students at the university. I couldn’t believe I heard those words come out of her mouth. She went around the circle opening night and hugged each and everyone one of us. She even made a statement about her work investing in humanity and how important that is for her right now being a mother in a time when it seems humanity is falling apart. She led us in a warm up on Saturday evening at 7:20pm before our performance. It was just unreal!
I’m completely inspired and fulfilled from this experience! This was my third time dancing on the stage at City Center. My first time coming to City Center was in 1999 to see the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. It was my first year dancing in college and after that performance I told my mother I wanted to be a professional dancer. She said ok and told me to work hard, and to finish my undergraduate degree (B.A. Liberal Studies). My second time back at City Center was in 2002 when I took the train from Philadelphia to NYC for my very first NYC audition. The audition was for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. I went to see how I could compare to the rest of the dancers in New York City and to my surprise I walked out of the audition getting the job as an apprentice. The next couple of years I would be in that very studio (Studio 4) for rehearsals with the company. I went from apprenticing to becoming an actual company member in that very studio. I would later dance on stage at City Center in two "Fall For Dance" concerts. I danced onstage, naked, with Sean Curran in Bill T. Jones’ Continuous Replay and again in an excerpt from his Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Working with Crystal provided me the chance to have a completely new experience at City Center. It was by far the most serene, organized, pleasant, and professional time I’ve spent on stage there. Her ability to maintain stability with 66 dancers and a full orchestra is beyond my understanding.
Today we spent our time speaking with Crystal before the performance. She allowed us to ask her and her dancers anything. Once again she displayed so much generosity and humility. This experience was a lot of things for me, to say the least. It reaffirmed why I’m in graduate school. I’ve had my time in the sun. I’ve danced with one of the world’s best dance companies and have been on posters and tee shirts. I’m at a place where I want to give back what I’ve been given by others in a non-selfish way. I battle with the idea that dancing can be extremely selfish and I wonder, What good does that do the world? I want to use my gift of dance to help young dancers find who they are as people and dancers. I don’t want to impose or discourage, but I want to give them encouragement. I’m just a kid who saw a dance concert and wanted to dance. I wasn’t able to attend a dance conservatory or major in dance. I worked my ass off to get to where I am now and I’m ready to return the favor.
Being in Polaris allowed me to feel a sense of connection to a larger community. We worked together to create something that was beyond all of us. We weren’t BFA’S or MFA’S, good dancers or bad dancers, soloists or principals. We were just one unit.
