Crystal Pite

Crystal Pite (born December 15, 1970) is a Canadian choreographer and dancer.

Crystal Pite was born in Terrace, British Columbia on December 15, 1970.

She has two younger brothers.

Pite stated that she began choreographing when she was a toddler, creating choreography to a song called "My Little Red Wagon" at age 3.

She grew up in Victoria, British Columbia, and started studying tap at age 4, then ballet the following year.

She then studied dance under Maureen Eastick and Wendy Green.

During this time Pite choreographed on her classmates on Saturday afternoons, and choreographed the musical at her high school.

She also studied at the Banff Centre in summer programs and The School of Toronto Dance Theatre.

She began her professional dance career in 1988 at Ballet BC, and in 1996 she joined Ballett Frankfurt under the tutelage of William Forsythe.

She joined Ballet BC as a dancer in 1988 and performed with the company for eight years.

In 1990 she created her first professional choreography with the company called Between the Bliss and Me.

The success of this work allowed her to create additional pieces with Ballet BC, as well as choreography with Les Ballets Jazz De Montreal and Canada's Ballet Jörgen.

Pite danced in her first William Forsythe ballet in 1990 called In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated which was her initial introduction to performing his work.

Pite was attracted to Forsythe's choreography and wild interpretation of ballet.

In 1995, she auditioned for his dance company Ballett Frankfurt.

She was hired as a dancer, and in 1996, Pite left Canada for Germany to officially join the company.

Pite performed around the world with Ballett Frankfurt in EIDOS : TELOS, The Loss of Small Detail, and Endless House.

Pite was also excited to develop choreography with Forsythe using his improvisational technologies and in 2000 created Excerpts from a Future Work.

She was involved in the creation of Forsythe's educational film "William Forsythe: Improvisation Technologies: A Tool for the Analytical Dance Eye" as one of the four featured dancers.

She retired from dancing when she was 40 after the birth of her son.

After leaving Ballett Frankfurt she became the resident choreographer of Montreal company Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal from 2001 to 2004.

Pite returned to British Columbia in 2001 and took up residence in Vancouver.

Later that year, she created a duet called Tales - New and Abridged with Cori Caulfield.

In 2001, she was appointed to a three-year residency with Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal to choreograph new works.

Her first show with the company, Short Works: 22, premiered that same year.

She expanded this piece to be featured in the first part of The Stolen Show, also performed by Les Ballet Jazz de Montréal.

The second part featured choreography that was also called The Stolen Show and the third piece was called Xspectacle.

In 2002 she formed her own company called Kidd Pivot, which produced her original works Uncollected Work (2003), Double Story (2004), Lost Action (2006), Dark Matters (2009), The You Show (2010), The Tempest Replica (2011), Betroffenheit (2015), and Revisor (2019) to date.

Pite formed Kidd Pivot in 2002 as an inter-disciplinary performing arts company based in Vancouver.

Her first dance shows with the company showcased her shorter works and sometimes featured other choreographers.

Throughout her career she has been commissioned by many international dance companies to create new pieces, including The Second Person (2007) for Netherlands Dans Theater and Emergence (2009) for the National Ballet of Canada, the latter of which was awarded four Dora Mavor Moore Awards.

She then returned to Vancouver where she focused on choreographing while continuing to dance in her own pieces until 2010.

In 2010, Kidd Pivot became the resident dance company of the German theatre Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, and for the next three years Pite premiered her work in Frankfurt, Germany.

While working in Frankfurt, Pite choreographed The You Show (2010), which explored different types of relationships in various duets and The Tempest Replica (2011) which was based on Shakespeare's The Tempest.

When her arrangement with Künstlerhaus Mousonturm expired she became an Associate Artist with Sadler's Wells' in 2013 and created Polaris (2015) based on Thomas Adès's music, using both the dancers from Kidd Pivot and 60 students from New York University.

Her work Betroffenheit (2015), a piece co-created with collaborator Jonathon Young, premiered at the 2015 Pan American Games.

Her most recent work for Kidd Pivot Revisor (2019), was also created with Jonathon Young, premiering in Vancouver with DanceHouse at The Vancouver Playhouse.

Throughout her career as a choreographer, Pite has choreographed works for world renowned companies such as Nederlands Dans Theatre I, The Paris Opera Ballet, Ballet Jörgen, Ballet BC, Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal, Cullberg Ballet, the National Ballet of Canada, The Royal Ballet, Ballett Frankfurt, and Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet.

She has choreographed over 50 works, many of which have been nominated for and won several awards.

Currently, while running Kidd Pivot, she is also an Associate Artist at Sadler's Wells in London, an Associate Choreographer with Nederlands Dans Theatre in The Netherlands, and an Associate Dance Artist of Canada's National Arts Centre.