Crystal Pite

Canadian choreographer and director Crystal Pite made her Royal Ballet debut in the 2016/17 Season with Flight Pattern. 

Pite is a former company member of Ballet British Columbia and William Forsythe’s Frankfurt Ballet. Her professional choreographic debut was in 1990, at Ballet British Columbia. Since then, she has created more than fifty works for companies such as The Royal Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater I, Cullberg Ballet, Frankfurt Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal (Resident Choreographer, 2001–04), Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet and Ballet British Columbia. She has also collaborated with Electric Company Theatre and Robert Lepage. Pite is Associate Choreographer of Nederlands Dans Theater I, Associate Dance Artist of Canada’s National Arts Centre and Associate Artist at Sadler’s Wells. She holds an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Simon Fraser University. 

In 2002, she formed her company 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 is marked by a strong theatrical sensibility and a keen sense of wit and invention. Kidd Pivot tours nationally and internationally, performing critically acclaimed works such as Betroffenheit, The Tempest Replica, Dark Matters, Lost Action and The You Show. The company recently toured Revisor, a co-creation with playwright Jonathon Young. 

Pite, a Member of the Order of Canada, is the recipient of the 2008 Governor General of Canada’s Performing Arts Award, Mentorship Program, the 2011 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award, the 2012 Lola Award, the Canada Council’s 2012 Jacqueline Lemieux Prize and the UK Critic’s Circle Dance Award in 2015 and 2018. In 2017, she received the Benois de la Danse for her creation The Seasons’ Canon at Paris Opera Ballet. In 2018, she received the Grand Prix de la danse de Montréal. She is the recipient of three Olivier awards, including one in 2017 for Flight Pattern.