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Flight Pattern

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This article is about the ballet. For the photographic sculpture installation, see Flight Patterns.
Flight Pattern
A woman is leaning towards the audience while another dancer is holding her torso. In the background, people are walking in a queue.
An image from Flight Pattern
ChoreographerCrystal Pite
MusicHenryk Górecki
Premiere16 March 2017 (2017-03-16)
Royal Opera House
Original ballet companyThe Royal Ballet
DesignJay Gower Taylor
Nancy Bryant
Tom Visser
Genrecontemporary ballet

Flight Pattern is a one-act contemporary ballet by Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite, set to the first movement of Henryk Górecki's Symphony No.3. It premiered at the Royal Opera House, London, on 16 March 2017, making Pite the first woman to choreograph for The Royal Ballet's main stage in 18 years. The ballet won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production in 2018.

Flight Pattern examines the plight of refugees, drawing inspiration from 20th and 21st-century events, particularly the refugee crisis caused by the Syrian civil war. The ballet starts with 36 dancers performing on stage, and transitions to a series of duets and solos originated by dancers Marcelino Sambé and Kristen McNally. The piece was mostly positively reviewed by critics, with many praising the performance of the two soloists and the choreography of the ensemble. In 2022, Pite expanded the ballet into Light of Passage, with Flight Pattern becoming the first part of the ballet. The narrative is non-linear and the movement uses lines created by the dancers' bodies and formations of queues to create tension on stage.

Choreography

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External videos
video icon An excerpt of Flight Pattern, YouTube video

Flight Pattern is a one-act contemporary ballet performed in 30 minutes.[1] The music inspired the structure of the choreography, with a long and slow crescendo that transitions to a single voice. Crystal Pite, the choreographer of this piece, mimicked this structure in the creative process. She focused first on the large scale of the crisis, then on a singular story. Pite felt that an emotional connection with a single story would be more impactful to the audience than many dancers on stage.[2]

The piece begins with 36 dancers arranged in three equal rows, standing in profile to the audience and staring at a light while rocking in packed rows.[3][4][5] The dancers then move in canon, their spines unravelling to cause their heads to look back, then forward in a bow.[6] Vignettes of choreography are then performed by various dancers who break away from the ensemble to perform solos, duets, or small group choreography.[7][8] These include dancers who fight with each other and perform frantically in couples,[4] a body that is left on the ground as the other dancers move forward, a man that frantically moves over the other dancers,[9] an energetic duet with two men, and the reunion of a romantic couple.[7] Contrasting the vignettes are the rest of the dancers, who are performing different choreography at other parts of the stage.[10] The set then opens at the back of the stage, mimicking the entrance to a holding area for the dancers. The dancers enter the holding area and try to find a place to sleep.[3]

See caption
Marcelino Sambé, pictured here in 2010, was one of the soloists in the original performance of this piece.

The dance transitions to a pas de deux originated by Marcelino Sambé and Kristen McNally.[1][3] The choreography is broken up with moments of each dancer performing solo choreography, then returning to a duet.[11] The choreography suggests that the couple has lost a child.[1][3] During the couple's dance, the other performers place their coats on the female dancer, causing her to collapse. The performers enter a doorway, but the weight of the jackets prevents the female dancer from joining them and she remains on the ground, shivering. The male performer stays with her, dancing in frustration.[4] The ballet ends with the two dancers performing together[12] and the male soloist turning away from a closing door as the other dancers are seen darting through the opening.[5] The final movement is of the male principal dancer placing a hand on the shoulder of the female principal dancer.[11]

The choreography incorporates a loose torso and grounded movement, which are atypical in ballet.[13] A fluid, slow-moving motif sequence is repeated throughout the piece, becoming more elaborate in each reiteration. The dance becomes faster towards the middle of the work, incorporating dabbing and thrusting movements.[14] Lines were commonly used on stage to create tension, with queues of dancers formed to contrast periods of waiting with other moments of the dancers getting direction from external forces.[11] Raised arms were used to represent the wings of birds and mimic the waves of water.[15]

Development

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See caption
Crystal Pite, pictured here in 2010, was the choreographer of Flight Pattern

The Royal Ballet commissioned what would become Flight Pattern in 2014, which was Pite's first piece for the company.[2][16] While listening to possible music selections, focusing on contemporary classical music, she was thinking about the ongoing European migrant crisis.[17] She chose to choreograph to the first movement of Henryk Górecki's Symphony No.3, also known as the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs.[2][3] Pite associated the music with the migrant crisis, for which she was "disappointed" with the international response, and on choreographing a ballet about the crisis, she said it was her "way of coping with the world at the moment".[2][3] The theme and music were selected approximately one and a half years before the first rehearsal and was the starting point for Pite's creative process.[18]

Pite chose to work with a large ensemble for this piece to showcase complex choreography with simpler movement. At the beginning of the creation process, Pite created movement phrases before the rehearsals and taught them to the dancers; Lucía Piquero Álvarez, a professor at the University of Malta, speculated in her analysis of the piece that the motif sequence was taught during this time.[16]

Nancy Bryant designed identical grey costumes in the performance;[19][4] dancer begin wearing grey coats,[1] but these are later taken off to reveal grey vests and loose trousers underneath.[4][19][13] Jay Gower Taylor designed the sets,[19] with dark panels that open and close throughout the performance[12] and manipulate the shape of the stage.[20] Tom Visser was the lighting designer,[21] using dark lighting except at the end, when a column of light shines between two walls.[22]

Performances

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A photograph of the Royal Opera House auditorium
The auditorium of the Royal Opera House, where Flight Pattern premiered

Flight Pattern premiered on 16 March 2017 at the Royal Opera House, London. The piece was performed as the first ballet of a triple bill that also consisted of The Human Seasons by David Dawson and After the Rain by Christopher Wheeldon.[4][2] It finished its original run on 24 March.[9]

Flight Pattern was revived in May 2019, with McNally and Sambé reprising their roles. It was performed as the third act in a triple bill, succeeding choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's Medusa and Wheeldon's Within the Golden Hour.[23] A performance was recorded and published on the Royal Ballet website, and available for purchase until December 2020.[5]

After finishing choreographing Flight Pattern, Pite was invited by Kevin O'Hare, the director of the Royal Ballet, to choreograph other new works for the company. Instead, Pite stated that she wanted to extend Flight Pattern by choreographing to the rest of Górecki's symphony.[24][25] Production of the piece was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns.[25] In 2022, this extended work premiered as Light of Passage, with Flight Pattern incorporated as the first part of the ballet. This was Pite's first full-length work for The Royal Ballet.[1]

Themes and analysis

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A photograph of a group of refugees standing on a train station platform
Refugees waiting at a train station in Vienna. Although the influx of refugees to Europe in the 2010s was an inspiration, the piece did not establish the dancers as characters in a specific time or place.

The piece's theme was the plight of displaced persons as they travelled between locations.[26][27] While getting inspiration from conflicts from the past century, particularly the influx of refugees to Europe during the 2010s, it did not place its dancers in a specific time or location. Instead, the dancers are an allegory for the experience of displaced persons.[28] The subject matter is conventional for dance pieces in the Western world, showcasing people outside of the hierarchies of power as performers dancing in a stylized manner. The uniformity of the grey costumes evoked a setting of a prison or battlefield, with the dancers under the control of a more powerful entity.[22] By not placing the piece narratively in a specific historical setting, the piece avoided themes on the racialization of refugees or the relationship between colonialization and displaced persons.[29]

The narrative is non-linear, particularly in the first part of the piece, where multiple story arcs are shown simultaneously on stage. Narratives include looking for people in a queue, rocking a baby, and bodies left behind as the crowd moves to a new location.[15] In some sections, dancers perform together, representing refugees as a single body of people moving as a group.[30] A motif in the work is dancers with outstretched arms, suggesting they have reached their physical limitations.[31]

The movement incorporated realistic human gestures and fantastical, emotional extremes with animalistic qualities.[31] The first section of the dance contains motifs of suspensions of weight or unbalanced spins.[8] The dancers will often gaze up towards something that is too far to reach.[29] The duet between the two principal dancers shows the journey of a female character who starts as a mother providing support to her child, and then acts similarly to a baby who needs support.[10] The baby's presence represents an anchor baby, whose birth allows the child to become rooted in their new location while the rest of the group is still transient.[31] The mother shows a vulnerable person who is exhausted and hungry.[31] The emotions displayed in the piece are developed from the tension created by the story, movement quality, music, and spacing between the dancers.[32]

Critical reviews

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Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Evening Standard[9]
The Guardian (2017 review)[7]
The Guardian (2020 review)[4]
The Independent[19]
The Telegraph[3]

Flight Pattern received mostly positive reviews. Pite's choreography of the 36 dancers was described by Graham Watts in Bachtrack as "beautiful"[33] and Martha Schabas in The Globe and Mail as "masterfully layored".[8] Reviewers differed on the emotional impact of the piece: some thought it was impactful[20][23] and that the choreography avoided abstract and metaphorical movement to a positive effect.[8] Others felt the choreography was simplistic and sanitised,[19] melodramatic,[7] or lacked the depth of her previous work.[5] Sambé's performance was "exuded fluency and naturalness" according to Watts[1] whilst other reviewers praised the decision to cast McNally as a soloist, especially because she was an experienced performer.[4][33]

Reviewers highlighted the 18-year gap since the Royal Ballet commissioned work from a female choreographer.[4][7][9] They also pointed out that Flight Pattern's contemporary ballet style is different from the classical ballet that the company often performs in their repertoire and from the other dances performed in the same program.[4][8] Luke Jennings, when writing for The Guardian, stated that Flight Pattern had an inquiry and feeling that was missing from the other, classical pieces.[4] Kat Lister stated in The Independent that the performance at Royal Opera House, a location considered a classical venue, made the piece more impactful to the audience.[24] The subject matter of the choreography, highlighting the European migrant crisis, was also questioned by some reviewers. They felt that the topic negatively distracted them from the artistic achievements of the ballet.[12]

Awards and nominations

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Year Award Category Recipients and nominees Result Ref.
2017 National Dance Awards Best Classical Choreography Crystal Pite Nominated [34]
Outstanding Female Performance (Classical) Kristen McNally Nominated [34]
2018 Laurence Olivier Awards Best New Dance Production Flight Pattern Won [35]

References

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Citations

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  1. ^ a b c d e f Watts, Graham (19 October 2022). "Hauntingly beautiful: Crystal Pite's Light of Passage at The Royal Ballet". Bachtrack. Archived from the original on 5 November 2022. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
  2. ^ a b c d e Winship, Lyndsey (28 February 2017). "Crystal Pite on responding to the refugee crisis, working at the Royal Ballet and the purpose of art". Evening Standard. Archived from the original on 31 August 2020. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Monahan, Mark (17 March 2017). "Crystal Pite's Flight Pattern is an emotional odyssey that passes in the blink of an eye - Royal Ballet mixed bill, review". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 27 October 2020. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Jennings, Luke (19 March 2017). "Royal Ballet triple bill review – five stars for Crystal Pite". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 27 April 2020. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
  5. ^ a b c d O'Brien, Roisin (30 November 2020). "Review: Crystal Pite taps into current questions of connection, understanding and culpability in Flight Pattern". The Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on 24 July 2021. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
  6. ^ Golomb 2023, pp. 310–311.
  7. ^ a b c d e Mackrell, Judith (17 March 2017). "Royal Ballet triple bill review – gripping vision of the refugee crisis". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 7 November 2022. Retrieved 9 April 2023.
  8. ^ a b c d e Schabas, Martha (18 March 2017). "Cleared for Takeoff". The Globe and Mail. p. R9. ISSN 0319-0714. Archived from the original on 11 April 2023. Retrieved 11 April 2023.
  9. ^ a b c d Winship, Lyndsey (20 March 2017). "Flight Pattern, dance review: Crystal Pite's extraordinary talent shines in Royal Ballet triple bill". Evening Standard. Archived from the original on 9 April 2023. Retrieved 9 April 2023.
  10. ^ a b Piquero Álvarez 2021, pp. 463–464.
  11. ^ a b c Piquero Álvarez 2021, p. 464.
  12. ^ a b c Sulcas, Roslyn (21 October 2022). "In London, Massed Human Misery and Communal Revelations". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 7 April 2023. Retrieved 7 April 2023.
  13. ^ a b Piquero Álvarez 2021, p. 461.
  14. ^ Piquero Álvarez 2021, p. 463.
  15. ^ a b Piquero Álvarez 2021, p. 467.
  16. ^ a b Piquero Álvarez 2021, p. 462.
  17. ^ Monahan, Mark (14 March 2017). "Choreographer Crystal Pite: 'I'm not putting this on stage as a political act'". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Archived from the original on 7 October 2022. Retrieved 9 April 2023.
  18. ^ Piquero Álvarez 2021, pp. 462, 464.
  19. ^ a b c d e Anderson, Zoë (19 March 2017). "Flight Pattern, The Royal Ballet, Royal Opera House, London, review: It has immense scale and ambition". The Independent. Archived from the original on 29 April 2019. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
  20. ^ a b Crompton, Sarah (23 October 2022). "Light of Passage review – Crystal Pite's magnificent dance of life". The Observer. ISSN 0029-7712. Archived from the original on 17 December 2022. Retrieved 7 April 2023.
  21. ^ Crisp, Clement (19 March 2017). "Crystal Pite's Flight Pattern at the Royal Opera House, London — profoundly moving". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 9 April 2023. Retrieved 9 April 2023.
  22. ^ a b Golomb 2023, p. 307.
  23. ^ a b Winship, Lyndsey (9 May 2019). "Royal Ballet: Within the Golden Hour / Medusa / Flight Pattern review – monsters and melancholy". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 27 August 2020. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
  24. ^ a b Lister, Kate (18 October 2022). "Crystal Pite: 'There's an optimism in gathering together and creating something'". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2 November 2022. Retrieved 9 April 2023.
  25. ^ a b Swain, Marianka (7 October 2022). "Royal Ballet's Crystal Pite: 'Through dance, I'm able to express the inexpressible'". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 6 August 2024.
  26. ^ Piquero Álvarez 2021, pp. 461–462.
  27. ^ Golomb 2023, p. 309.
  28. ^ Golomb 2023, pp. 301, 304.
  29. ^ a b Golomb 2023, p. 310.
  30. ^ Golomb 2023, p. 305.
  31. ^ a b c d Golomb 2023, p. 306.
  32. ^ Piquero Álvarez 2021, p. 457.
  33. ^ a b Watts, Graham. "The Royal Ballet: The Human Seasons/ After the Rain / Flight Pattern". Bachtrack. Archived from the original on 11 April 2023. Retrieved 11 April 2023.
  34. ^ a b "2017 National Dance Awards – Announcement of Nominations". DanceTabs. 21 November 2017. Archived from the original on 11 April 2023. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
  35. ^ "Olivier Awards 2018: Winners in full". BBC News. 9 April 2018. Archived from the original on 30 September 2019. Retrieved 10 April 2023.

Works cited

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