Press Release: Scottish Ballet's Autumn Season 2016 includes Crystal Pite's Emergence and Sophie Laplane's Sibilo

[Jan McNulty]

SCOTTISH BALLET’S AUTUMN SEASON 2016 INCLUDES CRYSTAL PITE’S EMERGENCE AND THE WORLD PREMIERE OF SOPHIE LAPLANE’S SIBILO

 

 

Fusing dance and movement, human and animal, electronic music and symphonic sound; Scottish Ballet’s Autumn Season 2016 brings together internationally acclaimed choreographer, Crystal Pite, and Scottish Ballet’s emerging choreographic talent, Sophie Laplane.

 

EMERGENCE:

Scottish Ballet is the first UK ballet company to present Crystal Pite’s work and will present the European premiere of Emergence at this year’s Edinburgh International Festival before touring to Glasgow, Inverness and Aberdeen. Crystal Pite is one of the dance world’s most in-demand choreographers and is an Associate Artist with Sadler’s Wells. In 2015, Pite was awarded a Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance. 

 

A riveting work by choreographer Crystal Pite, Emergence sees dancers cast as a swarming, scurrying group, insect-like, in an eerie universe. The full force of Scottish Ballet’s 36 dancers creates spectacular formations, set to a hypnotic electronic score by Owen Belton.

 

 

SIBILO:

Scottish Ballet’s Autumn Season double bill also includes the world premiere of Company dancer and choreographer Sophie Laplane’s exciting new work Sibilo. Laplane’s singular choreographic style mixes humour with inspiration from everyday emotions and situations. 

 

Sibilo (Italian word for whistle) will show Laplane’s special ability for creating joyful and unrestricted dance. Laplane has collaborated with Alex Menzies (Scottish electronic music producer and DJ also known as Alex Smoke) to create an original musical composition for Sibilo.

 

Scottish Ballet CEO / Artistic Director Christopher Hampson:

“Our aim at Scottish Ballet is to present the most engaging choreographers the dance world has to offer alongside developing talent from within. I’m excited to pair Emergence with a new creation by our emerging choreographer Sophie Laplane. Sophie has a truly distinctive choreographic style and is one to watch. I am thrilled that audiences will get to see more of her inventive work.”

 

Crystal Pite’s Emergence and Sophie Laplane’s Sibilo will be performed as part of Scottish Ballet’s Autumn Season 2016 at Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Eden Court, Inverness and His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen in September and October 2016.

 

Emergence credits:

Choreography: Crystal Pite

Music: Owen Belton

Scenic Design: Jay Gower Taylor

Costume Design: Linda Chow

 

Sibilo credits:

Choreography: Sophie Laplane

Music: Alex Smoke + others TBC

 

 

The Skinny are Media Partners of Scottish Ballet's Autumn Season 2016

 

 

 

EDITORS NOTES:

Emergence

Scottish Ballet is the first ballet Company in the UK to present a work from Crystal Pite. Emergence was first created for the National Ballet of Canada in 2009 and was also performed by Pacific Northwest Ballet in 2013. It won four Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Outstanding Production, Outstanding New Choreography, Outstanding Performance and Outstanding Sound Design/Composition by Owen Belton. 

 

Crystal Pite biography

Canadian choreographer and performer Crystal Pite is a former company member of Ballet British Columbia and William Forsythe’s Ballett Frankfurt. Pite’s professional choreographic debut was in 1990, at Ballet British Columbia. Since then, she has created over 40 works for companies such as Nederlands Dans Theater I, Cullberg Ballet, Ballett Frankfurt, The National Ballet of Canada, Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal (Resident Choreographer, 2001-2004), Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, Ballet British Columbia, and Louise Lecavalier/Fou Glorieux. She has also collaborated with Electric Company Theatre and Robert Lepage. Crystal is Associate Choreographer of Nederlands Dans Theater I and Associate Dance Artist of Canada’s National Arts Centre. In 2013, Crystal was appointed Associate Artist at Sadler’s Wells, London.

In 2002, she formed Kidd Pivot in Vancouver. Integrating movement, original music, text, and rich visual design, Kidd Pivot’s performance work is assembled with recklessness and rigour, balancing sharp exactitude with irreverence and risk. The company’s distinct choreographic language – a breadth of movement fusing classical elements and the complexity and freedom of structured improvisation – is marked by a strong theatrical sensibility and a keen sense of wit and invention.

Kidd Pivot tours nationally and internationally, performing such highly-demanded and critically acclaimed works as Dark Matters and Lost Action. Kidd Pivot’s residency at the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt (2010-2012) provided Pite the opportunity to create and tour The You Show and The Tempest Replica. Most recently, the company has premiered Betroffenheit, a co-creation with playwright and actor Jonathon Young of Electric Company Theatre.

Pite is the recipient of the Banff Centre’s Clifford E. Lee Award (1995), the Bonnie Bird North American Choreography Award (2004), and the Isadora Award (2005). Her work has received several Dora Mavor Moore Awards (2009, 2012), and a Jessie Richardson Theatre Award (2006). She is the recipient of the 2008 Governor General of Canada’s Performing Arts Award, Mentorship Program, the 2011 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award, the inaugural Lola Award in 2012, and the Canada Council’s 2012 Jacqueline Lemieux Prize. Most recently, she received a Laurence Olivier Award (2015) for Outstanding Achievement in Dance.

 

“In Emergence Pite has created a piece that is unique, questioning, fascinating”

Ballet-dance.com

 

“She deploys her army of 38 dancers to amplify movement and create swells of emotion, sometimes in unison, sometimes in canon, but also in fascinating surges of movement that snake through the swarm in unpredictable fashion.”

The Huffington Post (on Emergence)

 

“Pite structures her work with a thrilling intelligence and choreographs with a detail that makes you feel passion and unease under your own skin.”

The Guardian

 

Sophie Laplane biography

Sophie Laplane trained at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris, winning the Prize of the CNSMDP Mention Bien. Prior to this, she trained at the Paris Opera Ballet School. She danced with Le Ballet de Lorraine from 2003 to 2004 and was a member of The Junior Ballet Classique du Conservatoire de Paris between 2002 and 2003. She joined Scottish Ballet in winter 2004, and was promoted to Coryphée in July 2011. Significant roles have included playing Stella in Lopez’s Ochoa A Streetcar Named Desire and Juliet’s friend in Pastor’s Romeo and Juliet as well as performing in Matthew Bourne’s Highland Fling.

Laplane honed her choreographic skills under the leadership of Scottish Ballet CEO/Artistic Director Christopher Hampson. Her work Oxymore was showcased at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2013 as part of Scottish Ballet’s Dance Odysseys and was included in Scottish Ballet’s Up Close tour in 2014. It was also performed at the TEDx Glasgow event in June 2015. Laplane also created the work Sink In for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2014. Laplane’s critically acclaimed work Maze was performed as a curtain raiser at Scottish Ballet’s Autumn 2015 Season. Maze was first developed as part of the Royal Ballet’s Draft Works programme for emerging choreographers and was later adapted into a short dance film directed by Eve McConnachie, which premiered on Nowness and was shown on BBC iPlayer.

The List included Sophie Laplane on their list of the Top 100 influential people in Scotland in November 2015.

 

“…Laplane is clearly a major talent in the making.”

Sunday Herald

 

 

The Skinny

The Skinny is Media Partner for Scottish Ballet's Autumn Season 2016. 

The Skinny is a free culture and listings magazine which covers Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, Leeds and Manchester. Founded in 2005, the magazine offers an informed independent voice with a local slant.

 

 

 

AUTUMN SEASON 2016 LISTINGS

 

Scottish Ballet presents Emergence and Sibilo:

 

Theatre Royal, Glasgow

Thu 29 Sep - Sat 1 Oct 2016 – 7.30pm

Tickets from £14 - £24

Box office: 0844 871 7647

Pre-show talk – focus on dance

Fri 30 Oct 2016

6.30 – 7pm

Hear about the making of the production direct from members of our Artistic and Education teams. Free event but places are limited, please contact box office to book.

 

Eden Court, Inverness

Fri 7 - Sat 8 Oct 2016 – 7.30pm

Tickets £18 - £22

Box office: 01643 234 234

Pre-show talk – focus on dance

Fri 7 Oct 2016

6.30 – 7pm

Hear about the making of the production direct from members of our Artistic and Education teams. Free event but places are limited, please contact box office to book.

 

His Majesty's Theatre, Aberdeen

Fri 14 - Sat 15 Oct 2016 – 7.30pm

Tickets from £19 - £25

Box office: 01224 641 122

Pre-show talk – focus on dance

Fri 14 Oct 2016

6.30 – 7pm

Hear about the making of the production direct from members of our Artistic and Education teams. Free event but places are limited, please contact box office to book.

 

ENDS