Crystal Pite and Jonathon Young Return To Canadian Stage This December With ASSEMBLY HALL

This December, Canadian Stage will welcome - and be a co-commissioner of – internationally acclaimed performance company Kidd Pivot's highly anticipated new work ASSEMBLY HALL, on stage December 6 – 9 at the Bluma Appel Theatre.
 
Co-created by celebrated and award-winning collaborators Crystal Pite and Jonathon Young and currently touring across the country, ASSEMBLY HALL follows the massive success of the pair's previous works REVISOR and BETROFFENHEIT, which The Guardian called “the best dance work of the 21st century.” It is the fourth collaboration between Canadian Stage and Kidd Pivot to date.
 
“Any opportunity to welcome Kidd Pivot to our stage is cause for celebration,” says Canadian Stage Artistic Director Brendan Healy.  “Crystal Pite is nothing less than one of the great choreographers of our time and we are deeply proud to have supported her company Kidd Pivot for many years beginning with DARK MATTERS in 2012. Her ongoing collaboration with Jonathon Young has yielded the electrifying theatre/dance hybrids BETROFFENHEIT and REVISOR.  Their experimentation with the marriage of movement and narrative has birthed a performance language of its own; any new work sprouting from their creative partnership is a major moment on the global stage.”
 
With a style that is brilliantly orchestrated, highly energetic, and an inventive hybrid of dance and theatre, Pite has been described by The Guardian as “the dance genius who stages the impossible.” ASSEMBLY HALL springs from the ongoing fascination with story and the role of language as an animating force that fuels the company's creative process. In the work, a group of medieval re-enactors have come together for an Annual General Meeting in their local community hall. As the Board of Directors, they oversee an event called "Quest Fest" that has fallen on hard times: membership is dwindling, debt is mounting, and the hall is falling apart. Unless something drastic happens, the Directors of this venerable order will be facing dissolution. As the meeting progresses, the line between real and re-enactment begins to blur, ancient forces are awoken, and it soon becomes clear that there is something much more at stake here than a mock-medieval tournament.
 
Marrying text recorded by vocal performers including Young himself, the work is performed by Kidd Pivot's distinguished company of eight dancers, Brandon Alley, Livona Ellis, Rakeem Hardy, Greg Lau, Doug Letheren, Rena Narumi, Renee Sigouin, and Lea Ved.
 
Joining Pite and Young to complete the creative team are Sound Designers and Composers Owen Belton, Alessandro Juliani, and Meg Roe, Scenic Designer Jay Gower Taylor, Video Designer Cybéle Young, Lighting Designer Tom Visser, and Costume Designer Nancy Bryant.
 
KIDD PIVOT: ASSEMBLY HALL runs from December 6th to December 9th, 2023, with performances at 8:00pm. For more information visit www.canadianstage.com.