In November of 2009, the Cullberg Ballet made its debut on the small stage at Dansens Hus, with renowned Canadian choreographers Crystal Pite and Benoît Lachambre. Pite had previously created the full length work Matter of a Maker (2008) for the Cullberg Ballet, and returned to remount the work xspectacle. The piece was originally choreographed for Les Ballet Jazz de Montreal in 2004. The Cullberg Ballet performed it in March of 2010 at Dansens Hus in Stockholm.
The company went on to perform Xspectacle at the outdoor venue Parkteatern in Vitabergsparken, Stockholm in August of that same year. Later in December the Cullberg Ballet performed xspectacle again at Dansens Hus, this time alongside Ajö, choreographed by Mats Ek for the illustrious dancer Sylvie Guillem.
Crystal Pite’s notes on xspectacle:
Xspectacle is a portrait of something familiar and dear to me: dancers at work. The theater is the frame and the audience’s presence affects the images therein: what was once a practical and authentic task is now staged and conscious. From time to time, the performers cultivate their own instability so as to make the dance seem spontaneous. Improvisation, however, guarantees that the unknown gets a voice and that the risks and discoveries inherent therein receive their due attention. So in that capacity
Xspectacle is simultaneously generated and presented. The set reveals anunadorned simplicity, a utilitarian space punctuated with the elevated (expected even) sense that light and sound afford. Even the dancers’ physicality alternates seamlessly between banal and sublime: they are both simple and spectacular. We see their effort and their skill.
Returning to xspectacle after almost seven years has been both a conflicted experience but also clarifying. It reminds me of what I love about dance: that it is a fleeting and adaptable art form always in a state of creation. Xspectacle continues to be shaped and changed by each dancer who moves through it, both past and present. I want to thank the Cullberg Ballet for the opportunity to work with xspectacle again.
Length: 25 min
Premiere 2004 with LES BALLETS JAZZ MONTREAL
European premiere 25 November 2009 with Cullberg Ballet at Dansens Hus Lilla scen, Stockholm.
Press:
“An intelligent declaration of love for the work of the dancers, for the skillful craftsmanship behind their spontaneous expression.”
– Svenska Dagbladet (Swedish National newspaper)
“Passionate and full of dance…”
– Expressen
“Meeting an audience on a small stage and in an intimate room is new for the skilled Cullberg dancers. Together with the open and playful hint, it gives a hint of a new, possible path forward. ”
– Expressen