Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT 1) & Complicité: Figures in Extinction

Crystal Pite & Simon McBurney

Senior Creative Producer: Tim Bell

Music
Original composition: Owen Belton
Original sound design: Benjamin Grant
Includes musical fragments of: Perfume Genius: Normal Song (Michael Hadreas). Published by KMR Holdings L.P., administered by Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Blick Bassy: Aké (Olama Blick Bassy & Clément Petit). Published by No Format! / Collect! © Music Publishers BV. Licensed by Alter K / Collect! © Music Publishers BV

Text: excerpts from Why Look at Animals? by John Berger © John Berger, 2009 & The John Berger Estate

Translations (en-fi): Riku Rokkanen

Voices: Simon McBurney, Mamie McBurney, Max Casella, David Annen

Light Design: Tom Visser

Scenic Design: Jay Gower Taylor

Reflective Light Backdrop: Concept by Jay Gower Taylor in collaboration with Tom Visser

Costume Design: Nancy Bryant

Puppet Direction: Toby Sedgwick

Puppet Design and Built: Jochen Lange

Video Title Editor: Ennya Larmit

World Premiere: May 6, 2022, Amare, The Hague

NDT Rehearsal Directors: Francesca Caroti, Tamako Akiyama, Ander Zabala

Dancers: Alexander Andison, Demi Bawon, Anna Bekirova, Jon Bond, Conner Bormann, Pamela Campos, Emmitt Cawley, Isla Clarke, Scott Fowler, Ricardo Hartley III,
Nicole Ishimaru, Chuck Jones, Paloma Lassere, Genevieve O’Keeffe,
Omani Ormskirk, Kele Roberson, Luca Tessarini, Theophilus Vesely, Barry Gans, Sophie Whittome, Rui-Ting Yu, Zenon Zubyk

Duration: 33 minutes

Special thanks to: Joe Dines, Cosmo Sheldrake, Shenoah Allen, Thomas Arnold, Bronya Deutsch, Weronika Maria, Cesar Sarachu, Grzegorz Staniewicz, and Cassie, Teyo, and Noma McBurney.

Simon McBurney & Crystal Pite

Senior Creative Producer: Tim Bell

Music
Original composition: Benjamin Grant
Includes musical fragments of: Claude Debussy: La mer, L. 109 – I. From Dawn Till Noon on the Sea, performed by Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan, Claude Debussy

Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93: I. Moderato, performed by Vasily Petrenko & Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. © Boosey & Hawkes, London / Albersen Verhuur, The Hague

Johann Sebastian Bach: Concerto for 2 Violins in D Minor, BWV 1043 I. Vivace, performed by Zubin Mehta, Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, New York Philharmonic Orchestra

Nils Frahm: Less (Nils Frahm, Faber Music)

Alfred Schnittke: Cello Sonata No. 1: I Largo, II Presto, performed by Natalia Gutman. © Boosey & Hawkes, London / Albersen Verhuur, The Hague

Jim Perkins: The North Wind, violin: Anna de Bruin, recorded by Mark Knight, produced by Jim Perkins & Mark Knight, mastered by Ben Wiffen

Owen Belton: Extinction Crescendo, created for the piece Figures in Extinction [1.0]

Also featuring music by Josh Sneesby

Text: Iain McGilchrist: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (2009). Audio used with permission from the RSA: www.theRSA.org

Translations (en–fi): Riku Rokkanen

Voices: David Annen, Thomas Arnold, Suibhan Harrison, Mamie McBurney, Sarah Slimani, Sophie Steer, Indira Varma, Dan Wolff

Text fragments: From Alan Watts’ talk series Nature of Consciousness, used with permission from alanwatts.org. Speech by President Trump on climate change at the G7 press conference: c-span.org

Light Design: Tom Visser

Set Design: Michael Levine
Design associate: Anna Yates

Video Design: Arjen Klerkx

Costume Design: Simon McBurney in collaboration with Yolanda Klompstra

NDT Rehearsal Directors: Tamako Akiyama, Emily Molnar

Dancers: Alexander Andison, Demi Bawon, Anna Bekirova, Jon Bond, Conner Bormann, Pamela Campos, Emmitt Cawley, Isla Clarke, Scott Fowler, Ricardo Hartley III, Nicole Ishimaru, Chuck Jones, Paloma Lassere, Genevieve O’Keeffe, Omani Ormskirk, Kele Roberson, Luca Tessarini, Theophilus Vesely, Sophie Whittome, Rui-Ting Yu, Zenon Zubyk

World Premiere: February 8, 2024, Amare, The Hague

Duration: 33 minutes

Simon McBurney & Crystal Pite

Senior Creative Producer: Tim Bell

Music
Sound Design: Benjamin Grant
Associate Sound Designer: Raffaella Pancucci

Includes excerpts from:
Owen Belton: New composition

Gabriel Fauré: Requiem, Op. 48: I. Introït, Warner Music Group

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Requiem, K. 626: III. Sequentia: f. Lacrimosa (Compl. Süssmayr, Orch. Beyer) – Live, published by Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Berlin

Alfred Schnittke: Voices of Nature (1972) (parts), Requiem from the incidental music to Don Carlos (1975) (Parts: Kyrie & Aeternam) © Sikorski, Hamburg / licensed by Albersen Verhuur, The Hague

Connor Price, Haviah Mighty: Trendsetter, Amuse

Ice Spice: Princess Diana, Universal Music Group

Arvo Pärt: Symphony No. 4, licensed by Albersen Verhuur, The Hague

Lalo Schifrin: Millie, Classic Music International

Text: John Berger: Pages of the Wound (Twelve Theses on the Economy of the Dead), And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos © John Berger Estate

Translations (EN–FI): Riku Rokkanen

Ligh Design: Tom Visser

Set Design: Michael Levine
Associate set designer: Christophe Eynde
Assistant set designer: Peter Butler

Reflective Light Backdrop: Concept by Jay Gower Taylor, in collaboration with Tom Visser

Projection Design: Will Duke
Assistants projection design: David Butler, Arthur Skinner

Costume Design: Nancy Bryant

Additional Dialogue: Georgia Pritchett

Voices: David Annen, Thomas Arnold, Brooke Bloom, Heather Burns, Max Casella, Tamzin Griffin, Amanda Hadingue, Miles Jupp, Eric Morris, Ajay Naidu, Saskia Reeves, Dallas Roberts, Sarah Slimani, Arthur Wilson, Dan Wolff

NDT Rehearsal Directors: Emily Molnar, Francesca Caroti

Dancers: Alexander Andison, Demi Bawon, Anna Bekirova, Jon Bond, Conner Bormann, Pamela Campos, Emmitt Cawley, Isla Clarke, Scott Fowler, Ricardo Hartley III, Nicole Ishimaru, Chuck Jones, Paloma Lassere, Genevieve O’Keeffe, Omani Ormskirk, Justin Rapaport, Kele Roberson, Luca Tessarini, Theophilus Vesely, Nicole Ward, Sophie Whittome, Rui-Ting Yu, Zenon Zubyk

World Premiere: February 19, 2025, Factory International / Aviva Studios, Manchester

Duration: 41 minutes

Prologue

Ok, one two, one two, can you hear me? Ok, so the lists they’re all mixed up here, it goes Passenger Pigeon, Aral Sea…. Listen, are we going to list the things that are critically endangered or just the ones that have gone extinct? Just the extinct. I’ll read them one by one, the animals, and then the plants, and then the glaciers, rivers and so on and then we can do whatever we want, or do you want me to start with the intro? Ok. Here we go. Take one.

Figure 1. Pyrenean Ibex

Animals come from over the horizon; they are both mortal and immortal. Their blood flows like human blood. Animals intercede between us and our origin. They are both like and unlike man. And as a consequence, they have always been subjected and worshipped, bred and sacrificed.

Figure 4. Bachman’s Warbler

I wonder what it’s like to be a bird. She’s looking at us. Has it gone? Has she gone? Will it come back? Where have they gone? Are they gone forever?

Figure 5. South Selkirk Caribou Herd

Today with our lists of animals, with our zoos, our categories, and our farming. Animals are always the observed. The fact that they can observe us, has lost all significance. They are the objects of our ever-extending knowledge. What we know about them is an index of our power, and thus an index of what separates us from them. The more we know, the further away they are.

Figure 8. Helheim Glacier

Figure 12. Spider Orchid

Climate Denier #1

Good evening, everyone. Climate-change alarmists see a future plagued by catastrophic fires, floods, drought, diseases, refugees, war, terrorism, and harsh weather, all caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions. Wake up, people. With all the hysteria, all the fear, all the phoney science, could it be that man-made climate change is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the human race? Let me tell you something. God is still up there, and he promised to maintain the seasons and that cold and heat would never cease as long as the earth remains. The arrogance of people to think that we, we human beings, would be able to change what God is doing with the climate is outrageous.

Figure 17. Spix Macaw

Figure 21. Smooth Handfish

Climate Denier #2

Ok, now let me just stop you there. Because that’s where all of this is going. This is a question of individual liberties. And if I want to light my barbecue grill, or if I want to drive my 500 horsepower Mustang, I don’t want some pencil-necked geek from the government telling me that I have to buy a carbon credit in order to be able to do this. This is about me, personally. My family, my sons, my relatives, my friends… being able to exist in a free market economy, versus this level of control. So, what is the aim of the global warming movement? What are they trying to do? Well, I’ll tell you: these alarmists want bigger government, more spending, more regulation, and they’ll use any means necessary to scare you out of your wits while their doing it, as well as your tax dollars and your liberties. These guys are pushing an anti-energy, anti capitalist, pro-government agenda, and they’ll grab any bullshit from the so-called “science community” we’re talking bogus, inconsistent data being produced and fed - especially to our children. When it comes to “global warming” or “the climate crisis” or whatever they’re calling it today, the science is far from certain, it’s in fact very uncertain, and the more you look at it, the clearer that is.

BBC Bell Radio - Figure 23. Northern White Rhinoceros

…. And in Kenya, the last male Northern White Rhinoceros has died in the old Pejeta Conservancy, making this species functionally extinct. Like other Rhino species, the Northern White Rhino was decimated by poachers who take and sell the animals horns. A valuable commodity on the black market, the value for the White Rhino horn is so great, it now fetches up to 100,000 dollars per kilogram. Making it worth more than its weight in gold.

Figure 9. Splendid Poison Frog

Figure 31. White Alaskan Rabbit

Figure 34. Asiatic Cheetah

Figure 46. Passenger Pigeon- Finale

On September the 1st, 1914 at 5.30 in the afternoon, the last known Passenger Pigeon, a female named Martha, died at the Cincinnati Zoo. The Aral Sea, in central Asia, once the world’s fourth largest body of inland water, dried up in 2015. Caspian Tiger declared extinct in 2003, due to habitat loss, systematic hunting, and the reduction of prey. Yangtze River Dolphin, the last living Yangtze River Dolphin died ...Franciscan

Manzanita...Tasmanian Tiger...Pinta Island Tortoise...Thai Barasinga...Persian Cheetah..........

Epilogue

She’s looking at us? Has it gone? She’s gone? Will it come back? Where have they gone? Are they gone forever?

Iain McGilchrist: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World

The division of the brain is something neuroscientists don’t like to talk about anymore.

It enjoyed a sort of popularity in the ’60s and ’70s after the first split brain operations, and it led to a sort of popularization which has since been proved to be entirely false.

It’s not true that one part of the brain does reason and the other does emotion; both are profoundly involved in both. It’s not true that language resides only in the left hemisphere, it doesn’t, important aspects are in the right. It’s not true that visual imagery is only in the right hemisphere, lots of it is in the left.

And so, in a sort of fit of despair, people have given up talking about it. But the problem won’t really go away because this organ – which is all about making connection – is profoundly divided. It’s there inside all of us. And it’s got more divided over the course of human evolution – the ratio of the corpus callosum to the volume of the hemispheres has got smaller.

And the plot thickens when you realize that one of the main, if not the main function of the corpus callosum is in fact to inhibit the other hemisphere.

So, something very important is going on here about keeping things apart from one another.

What is all that about? What are they doing?

Well, it’s not just we who have these divided brains; birds and animals have them as well.

I think the simplest way to think of it is if you imagine a bird trying to feed on a seed, against a background of grit or pebbles. It’s got to focus very narrowly and clearly on that little seed and to be able to pick it out against that background.

But also, if it’s going to stay alive, it’s got to actually keep a quite different kind of attention open, it’s got to be on the lookout for predators.

And it seems that birds and animals quite reliably use their left hemisphere for this narrow-focused attention to something it already knows is of importance to it, and they keep their right hemisphere vigilant, broadly, for whatever might be.

And they also use their right hemispheres for making connections with the world, so they approach their mates and bond with their mates more using the right hemisphere.

But then you come to the humans. And it’s true that actually in humans too this kind of attention is one of the big differences. The right hemisphere gives sustained, broad, open, vigilant alertness, where the left hemisphere gives narrow, sharply focused attention to detail.

But humans are different. The big thing about humans is their frontal lobes. And the purpose of that part of the brain? To inhibit, to inhibit the rest of the brain, to stop the immediate happening; so standing back in time and space from the immediacy of experience. And that enables us to do what neuroscientists are always telling us we’re very good at, which is outwitting the other party. Being Machiavellian. We can read other people’s minds and intentions and, if we so want to, we can deceive them.

But the bit that always curiously missed out here is that it also enables us to empathize, because there’s a sort of necessary distance from the world. If you’re right up against it you just bite. But if you can stand back, and see that other individual is an individual like me who might have interests and values and feelings like mine, then you can make a bond.

So, the distance from the world that is provided is profoundly creative of all that is human.

Now, to do the Machiavellian stuff, we use our left hemispheres. To manipulate the world, which is very important, we need to be able to use – interact with the world – and use it for our benefit. Food is the starting point. But we also, with our left hemispheres, grasp (using our right-hands) things and make tools.

We also use that part of language to grasp things as we say – it pins them down.

So when we already know something’s important and we want to be precise about it, we use our left hemispheres in that way.

So this is very interesting. And it changes the view of the body. The body becomes an assemblage of parts in the left hemisphere.

The right hemisphere’s always on the lookout for things that might be different from our expectations. It understands individuals not just categories. It actually has a disposition for the living, rather than the mechanical.

Let me make it very clear; for imagination you need both hemispheres. Let me make it clear; for reason you need both hemispheres.

So, if I had to sum it up, I’d say the left hemisphere, dependent on denotative language and abstraction, yields clarity and power to manipulate things that are known, fixed, static, isolated, decontextualized, explicit, general in nature, but ultimately lifeless.

The right hemisphere by contrast yields a world of individual, changing, evolving, interconnected, implicit, incarnate living beings within the context of the lived world, but in the nature of things never fully graspable, never perfectly known and to this world it exists in a certain relationship.

And it’s my suggestion to you that in the history of western culture things started with a wonderful balancing of these hemispheres, but in each case, it drifted further to the left hemisphere’s point of view.

The knowledge is mediated by the left hemisphere is within a closed system. It has the advantage of perfection but the perfection is bought ultimately at the price of emptiness.

We live in a world which is paradoxical. We pursue happiness and it leads to resentment and it leads to unhappiness and it leads, in fact, to an explosion of mental illness.

In our modern world, the so-called first world, we’ve developed something that looks awfully like the left hemisphere’s world. We prioritize the virtual over the real. More information – we have it in spades but we get less and less able to use it, to understand it, to be wise. The technical becomes important. Bureaucracy flourishes.

The picture however is fragmented. There’s a loss of uniqueness. The how has become subsumed in what. And the need for control leads to a paranoia in society that we need to govern and control everything. Our daily lives are more subjected to a network of small complicated rules that cover the surface of life and strangle freedom.

And I also think, rather more importantly, there’s a sort of hall of mirrors effect; the more we get trapped into this, the more we undercut and ironise things that might have led us out of it.

We just get reflected back into more of what we know about what we know.

It turned out that Einstein’s thinking somehow presaged this thing about the structure of the brain. He said, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rationale mind is a faithful servant.”

I'm going to read the 12 phrases by John Berger about the dead.

All of it?
We don't have to use them all.

I'll start by asking them questions. We'll try that.

Great.
Here we go.

Where were you born?
In Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia.

What’s your mother’s name?
Adriana Ines Santamaria Atertua. She was born in Antioquia, Colombia.

Your father?
My father is Mark Antony Ward. He was born close to Reading, a town called Marlow.

Mother’s mother?
Ophelia de Jesus Atehortua Restrepo. My other grandparents have died.

Where were you born?
In Rotterdam.

Your mum’s name?
Claire Limon. She was born in Paramaribo, Suriname. My dad, Ronny Ormskirk, was also born in Paramaribo.

Your mother’s mother?
That's Yvonne Limon Hiwat. My grandfather is Otmar Limon. My mum's name is Chen Lixian. She was born in Taoyuan. My father is Yu Changyu. He was born in Zhongli. My father's mother is Luo Yue Li. She lives with us, I know her well. Her husband is Yu Wen Zhou. He passed away five years ago.

When I think of my dead, of my ancestors, they feel far away. They are far away. They're on the other side of the earth. If I thought of them in a physical sense. If I'm reading, I feel like an image of my grandfather. Or when I'm working out, an image of my great-grandfather. They come in almost... images. If I'm looking at myself, they appear as me, but as them. The people in my family who passed away, I can't place them. In fact, I can place them – on my skin. My body's covered in tattoos.

I can't say where my dead are. Maybe they're here? I think they live inside me. Whether I'm conscious of it or not. I think I feel them...

The dead surround the living. The living form the core of the dead. In this core are the dimensions of time and space. What surrounds this core is timelessness.

To see the dead as the individuals they once were tends to obscure their nature. Try to consider the living as we might assume the dead to do... collectively. The collective would accrue not only across space but also throughout time. It would include all those who had ever lived.

The living reduce the dead to those who have lived. Yet the dead already include the living in their own great collective. The dead inhabit a timeless moment of construction continually rebegun... This construction is the state of the universe at any instant...

So, having lived, the dead can never be inert. The living too, sometimes, experience timelessness. As revealed in sleep, ecstasy, instants of extreme danger, and perhaps in the experience of dying itself.

- -

This is what we do when the patient can't move. Could you turn that off?

The five stages of decomposition of the human body.

Stage 1: Self-Digestion.
Stage 1 of human decomposition begins with the self-digestion stage. The absence of oxygenated blood flow causes muscle tissue to become rigid, a condition known as rigor mortis. Which can last from 1 to 4 days. Then the body begins to eat itself from the inside out...

Stage 2: Bloat.
The second stage, bloating, occurs a short time after death. According to forensic pathologist Dr. Darren Wolf, as bacteria grows, they produce gases, some odorous, called putrefaction…

Stage 3: Active Decay.
Of all the stages, stage 3 is perhaps the most significant; it's when the body loses the most mass. The area of decomposition expands as organs and muscles turn to liquids that are released into the environment.

Stage 4. Advanced Decay.
By the fourth stage, most soft tissue is decomposed, leaving only bones, hair, and tendons behind. If the corpse is outdoors, any skin left...

Stage 5: Skeletonisation.
The last stage of human decomposition, stage five, refers to what remains. Only bones and scant connective tissue. There is no specific set timeframe for when skeletonisation occurs. If exposed to the elements, the bones return to the earth and are scattered by animals. Only bones and scant connective tissues. There's no specific timeframe for when... We've got to fight nature. It will turn us back into nonsense... This is an unpredictable situation.

Sorry, we’re being told...

The dead surround the living. The living form the core of the dead. Within this core are the dimensions of time and space. What surrounds this core is timelessness. The dead inhabit a timeless moment of construction, continually rebegun. This construction is the state of the universe at any instant.

The dead know this moment of construction as also a moment of collapse. Having lived, the dead can never be inert. The dead are the imagination of the living.

- - -

So how do we, the living, now live with the dead? Until the dehumanization of society by capitalism, the living awaited the experience of the dead. It was their ultimate future. By themselves, the living were incomplete. Thus, living and dead were interdependent always. Only a uniquely modern form of egotism has broken this interdependence, with disastrous results for the living, who now think of the dead as the eliminated.

I think they live inside of me. Whether I'm conscious of it or not. Just like how oxygen exists in the air. We're not always consciously aware of it but we know it's there.