Light of Passage – a mesmerising meditation on loss, grief and hope
An accidental Crystal Pite festival sprang up last week, following Figures in Extinction, the results of an exceptional four-year collaboration with Simon McBurney and Nederlands Dans Theater with a revival of Light of Passage, made for the Royal Ballet in 2022.
It's a sweeping, powerful piece, combining three separate points of departure into its 90-minute running time, all set to Henryk Górecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, conducted by Zoi Tsokanou and sung with passion and poise by Francesca Chiejina.
The first section, Flight Pattern, was originally a standalone work and the pulsating intricacy of its portrayal of a mass of refugees, moving in great swaths of misery before emerging in solos and duets of individual sadness and resistance, remains overwhelmingly strong. The single moment when a woman is laden with the burden of many coats is a searing image of grief and loss and the young dancers of the Royal Ballet dig deep into its patterning, uncovering the emotion beneath.
In Covenant, the dancers are even younger – six junior associates of the Royal Ballet School, all in white, use the ranks of black-clad adults as their support and their protectors in a short, soaring assertion both of their hopefulness and their need for safety as they grow to adulthood.
In Passage, the last part, the liminal space is between life and death and – in the performance I saw – Kristen McNally and Bennet Gartside made the love of two people seemingly separated by that final frontier full of touching grace and shared memory. Around them, dancers flood like angels, illuminated by reflective light designed by Jay Gower Taylor and Tom Visser that seems to take on physical form, shifting in golden, molten clouds.
The serious intent of the whole work is balanced by its ability to create these moments of elevation, with Pite taking on the roles of philosopher and magician in her ability to forge dance that beautifully conveys both thought and feeling.
Light of Passage is at the Royal Opera House, London, until 12 March
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