WHITE BIRD UNCAGED WELCOMES BACK KIDD PIVOT WITH CRYSTAL PITE’S BRILLIANT NEW WORK DARK MATTERS, BLENDING LIFELIKE PUPPETRY, DYNAMIC MOVEMENT AND A HAUNTING ORIGINAL SCORE.

“Raw, visceral emotion.” –The Guardian (UK)
“Ambitious, fearless, dance.” –The Georgia Straight (Vancouver, BC)

Who: Kidd Pivot Frankfurt RM, Dark Matters
Presented by: White Bird Uncaged
When: Thursday, March 15 – Saturday, March 17, 8:00 pm
Where: Newmark Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway, Portland
Sponsor: Willamette Week
Tickets: $30, $20 student/senior available at www.whitebird.org and at PSU Box Office, 1620 SW Park (ZERO ticket fees).  Also available at 1-800-380-3516 (additional fees will apply).
For the latest information, please visit www.whitebird.org

White Bird Uncaged is delighted to present the return of Kidd Pivot Frankfurt RM and Crystal Pite’s new work Dark Matters on March 15-17 at the Newmark Theatre, Portland Center for the Performing Arts.  Kidd Pivot’s Lost Action launched White Bird Uncaged in Fall 2008, and Portland audiences discovered in Pite one of Canada’s most exciting and inventive choreographers.  Emerging from Pite’s fascination with the unseen forces at work on mind and body, Dark Matters is a brilliant combination of lifelike puppetry and dynamic movement, featuring a haunting original score from long-time collaborator Owen Belton.  The Australian observed that Pite “faces the inevitabilities of death and decay with humour and resilience . . .[She] plucks tenderness and transcendence from the void . . .The movement is ravishingly fluid,” while The Sydney Morning Herald remarked that “her dancers have exceptional fluency and control.”

Comprising roughly 96 percent of the observable universe, “dark matter” is the terra incognita of our day.  It affects the speed, structure and evolution of galaxies, yet its nature remains a mystery.  This potent, affecting darkness inspires the seven extraordinary dancers in Crystal Pite’s work, which is structured into two distinct acts.  Dark Matters begins by portraying the tension between creation and destruction through a decidedly theatrical fable; a struggle of wills develops between a Bunraku-style puppet, manipulated by black-clad puppeteer-performers, and the puppet-maker, leading to a ferocious climax.   Act Two is pure dance, with choreography that aspires to the impossible purity and grace of the puppet, while grappling with the essential question of free will and the conflict inherent in manipulation. The revelations of Act One inform the way the audience views the dancing in Act Two.  With “dark matter” beautifully embodied in the shadowy puppeteers, Dark Matters is a haunting portrait of the unknown, a performance that pulls itself apart in an attempt to discover what it’s made of.

Under the direction of internationally renowned Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite, Kidd Pivot Frankfurt RM has been resident company at Künstlerhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt since spring 2010, supported by by  Kulturfonds Frankfurt Rhein Main.  Integrating movement, original music, text, and rich visual design, Kidd Pivot Frankfurt RM’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 extensively around the world with productions that include Dark Matters (2009), Fault (2008), Lost Action (2006), Uncollected Work (2002) and Double Story (2004), created with Richard Siegal.  Kidd Pivot is the recipient of the 2006 Rio Tinto Alcan Performing Arts Award.

Born and raised on the Canadian West Coast, choreographer and performer Crystal Pite is a former company member of Ballet British Columbia and William Forsythe's Ballett Frankfurt.  Since her choreographic debut in 1990 at Ballet British Columbia, Pite has created works for Nederlands Dans Theater, Cullberg Ballet (Stockholm), Ballett Frankfurt, The National Ballet of Canada, Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal (Resident Choreographer, 2001-2004), Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, Ballet British Columbia, Alberta Ballet,  and several independent dance artists - most recently Louise Lecavalier.  In 2001 she formed Kidd Pivot in Vancouver, BC, and continues to create and perform in her own work. 

Kidd Pivot's residency at the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt has provided Pite with the resources to create The You Show (2010) and her newest work The Tempest Replica, which premiered in Frankfurt in October 2011.  Associate Choreographer of Nederlands Dans Theater and Associate Dance Artist of National Arts Centre in Ottawa, 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), the Governor General of Canada’s Performing Arts Award, Mentorship Program (2008) and the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award (2011).

White Bird’s presentation of Crystal Pite’s Dark Matters is made possible in part by a grant from the Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF) and the National Endowment for the Arts.
White Bird Uncaged is supported in part by The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
White Bird’s 14th season (2011-2012) is also supported by the Regional Arts & Culture Council and Work for Art, M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation, The Collins Foundation, Oregon Arts Commission, The Jaffe Foundation, Autzen Foundation, Herbert A. Templeton Foundation, Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF), Starseed Foundation, Harold & Arlene Schnitzer CARE Foundation and Lloyd and Marlene Ankeny Foundation.